Favorite Techniques
Photography Becoming Original Digital Art. Some days this takes the form of rambling treks through the countryside to document the shapes and textures of raw nature and intriguing old buildings. Other sessions focus on studio portraiture, on-location shoots or photographing dance performances. Back in the studio I use these images as the raw material for digitally painting what frequently become fantastical multilayered compositions. I either print these in their full-color form or create a monochrome version to be hand printed.
Hand Printing Processes. I often continue customizing an image through a method such as the historic cyanotype process. This involves printing a transparent negative of the digital image and hand coating paper with a solution of iron salts that, when dry, becomes sensitive to ultraviolet light. Once exposed, the design embeds into the paper fibers. Untreated prints are a deep blue, and when toned with various substances such as tannic acid, coffee or a bleaching solution, they can take on sepia, blacks or other colors. After mounting the image to a hard surface such as a birch wood panel, I may add layers of watercolor, oil paints or other pigments, and then always a cold wax finish to bring out luminance and add a protective layer.
Freeform Drawings And Paintings. I create some images through sketches of models and drawing from imagination. My oil and cold wax paintings emerged through these processes. Building on multiple iterations, they begin with a base of more concrete, figurative forms and become more abstract as pigments, textures, wax medium and organic materials are embedded and layered. Many of my embedded textures hold special meaning, such as moss from the trees at my parents’ house that I loved throughout my childhood.
Metalwork and Sculpture. I love combining rough and soft elements in my jewelry, from sturdy chains with hand hammered and soldered links, vintage repurposed leather clasps and fringe, bicycle hardware and tubing, to delicately formed and cast pendants or fine silver sculpted from metal clay and fired in a jewelry kiln. My larger cast metal pieces usually incorporate figurative elements, with an expressionistic or surrealistic quality.
