"I didn't know you could DO that!"

That's what someone said to me yesterday. The man's neighbors had hired me to create a set of three big canvases for a dining room wall, and until then it had never occurred to him that this sort of thing was possible.

The canvases in question -- each 40" high x 30" wide. My years of experience as a muralist meant that the size was not a challenge for me. The homeowners wanted an old-fashioned Italian type landscape with a medieval/Renaissance procession of figures, with five banners that would represent the family's five children and their occupations.

This is all oil paint, and the decision was made by the homeowners and their designer (the wonderful Mary Mackmiller of mackmiller design + build)  to keep the colors low-key so that the art would fill the space but not overwhelm it.

Crow and Magpie in their Best Attire

This pair of drawings are about 7" high x 6" wide, and they come from ... well, I've been drawing birds since I was five years old, and this week I allowed myself to go ahead and put some "silly" ideas I had on paper, and see where it took me. These are the same mixed media technique I use for so many of my animal portraits: layers of watercolor, pencils and pastel on heavy cotton paper.

Surely there's a story here, a fall festival of the Corvid family, perhaps. The Steller's Jay will be next in this series, though I don't know what his headdress will look like yet. I'll figure it out.