Red Stone

Red red red - sometimes I live in a red world.

Invitation

If you are in the Toronto area, come and see my show.

Summer Swing

Oh that easy swing of summer!

Tense Patterns

I'm very fond of patterns - in fact I think knitting and digital imaging have a lot in common. Take a look at a knitting pattern - what do all those little squares remind you of? Pixels! Here a simple cross pattern, some colour changes & the strong shadows define the image.

Pears

When I first started creating images, I was surprised at how many artists chose pears as their subject. I finally decided it was for 2 reasons: 1] human models aren't as readily available as fruit and 2] pears are visually very sensual.

784 Queen St

A moment from the streetcar - with a little Photoshop magic added into the mix.

Apple

An apple - with energy.

London 1

I like all those organized, repeating shapes in contrast with the uneven surface.

Profile

It is the fierceness & intensity of the gaze in combination with the richness of the colours that appeals to me.

All The Pretty Ponies

All The Pretty Ponies on my brother and sister-in-law's farm in Scotland. Pretty as a picture!

Empty Chair

I like how inanimate objects can tell a story.

I'm away from regular computer contact (oh horror!) for a few weeks and will not be posting new images until my return in early May.

Olive Pitter Exercise

I give my design students at Humber College a warm up exercise every week called The Olive Pitter. The structure is 20 minutes, 5 images and a subject. I do it too, to keep myself fresh. For this one the subject was Landscape and the 5 objects are shown at the bottom.

Stark Belief

Pentacostal Church on the Cherokee reservation just outside Great Smoky Mountain National Park, North Carolina. The starkness of the building was what stood out for me; the treatment I gave it emphasized that quality.

Hand Dance 02

Another in my Hand Dance series. I was showing my design students the pleasures of making radial compositions and the next day this piece got itself born.

Hand Sighs

The human body can be abstracted in so many different ways.

Intense

The tight, off-center crop and the differently coloured eyes emphasize the intensity of this self-portrait. Interesting how we see ourselves.

Pipe Dreams

The curves and cylinders in industrial piping makes me think of limbs and body parts.

Apartment Buildings

I tend to think of highrise apartment buildings as ugly. One sunny winter day, I suddenly saw beauty in those repeating balcony and window shapes and majesty in the buildings' sizes.

Hand Dance 01

I've always thought hands were like dancers as they perform the daily tasks of life.

Pain

This image of a face in pain began as a monoprint. The colour was added by layering photographs in the computer. The torn quality of the black seemed to echo the angst caught in the expression.

Still Life

I like how the shapes of the objects appear just by defining the shapes of the tones.

Monster

I was grappling with my own demons and made this monster.

Nighttime

Prince Edward County in Ontario. I shot this in broad daylight and played a lot in Photoshop.

Pensive Face

For this face I made a monoprint and scanned it. I generated the colour by layering photographs and painting until I came up with a pleasing abstraction. Then I mixed the scan with the colour. It is all part of my quest to infuse my images with more energy and life.

Ship Ladder

One cold winter's day I was photographing beat up old ships in a Hamilton, Ontario harbour. I was fascinated with the textures of the peeling painting and the strong lines of the ladder. After a dose of Photoshop, the image felt more like a painting.

Violin

This in one of the first of what I call my 'smear' experiments. I drew the violin very quickly with printer's ink on glass. Then I made a monoprint. I scanned that into Photoshop and added the colour.

Tea Time for Pegasus

Sometimes I remember that the ordinary is full of magic.

Troubled Face

This one started as a pastel and then changed dramatically in Photoshop. I like how the mood changes as the visual elements change. I keep digging with visual picks and shovels until a piece of truth emerges. The trick, of course, is knowing when to stop.

Roadtrip

I am amazed by how much time I spend looking at highways, cars, signs, maps and the dashboard when doing a roadtrip. Where does all that seeing go? I used the quilt pattern, Log Cabin, to organize the images.

Abandoned House

Every image maker gets to do one old-abandoned-house-with-ominous-sky image. Just one.

Weep

I wanted to see how much I could flatten out the tones of an image and yet still express emotion.

Cafe Colours

I've always thought that empty cafe seats look like theatre sets. This one was along Bloor St. in Toronto.

In-Animate

No, really.

Blue Glasses

Started as a pastel and evolved in Photoshop.

At the Beach

. . . and the living is easy

Face Spiral

This one began with a photo in Photoshop; then I discovered the pleasures of making spirals with the Transform tools.

Summer Grass

First Violinist

Sketched in pen at the Toronto symphony; scanned into Photoshop where the colour and tones were added.