This floral pattern was inspired by the blossoming fruit trees earlier this summer.  I began by drawing the blossoms by hand and then scanning them. The color and textures were created by drawing and photo layers manipulated in GIMP.

A few of the layers used to create the blossom image.

A close up of the finished image. You can view the finished image as a print,card or iphone case at Society6

The American Lotus Flower - Nelumbo lutea (nay-LUM-bo LOO-tee-uh.). While visiting East Harbor State Park we noticed many shallow water areas where the lotus was growing. The root of the American Lotus was used as a food source by Native Americas. The seeds and immature leaves are also edible.

The leaves of the lotus stand up off the water as well as float on the surface.

The flowers only bloom for two days. 

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time at East Harbor State Park near Port Clinton Ohio. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed the sand and water and sunshine. East Harbor is the cleanest most well equipped state park that I have been to in Ohio. 

This is a ring billed gull who was very interested in our picnic.

These are some pages from my sketch book. Focusing on the upper body- the scapula especially sits differently on each individual.

These are a few of the sketches I've been working on for a picture of a raven.The raven picture will be a watercolor. We were at Yellowstone a few years ago and the ravens were fascinating and very bold.

Nature Reference: Bird

Found this poor bird out in the horse pasture early one morning after a night of chilly temperatures. I think he was a young bird that had just left the nest and cuddled up to one of the horses during the night. Unfortunately cuddling with a 1200 lb. animal when you weigh a few ounces isn't a great idea and he was squished. I thought I would include him here as reference for others who are interested in nature study. I'm working on a portrait of a raven and the more detail I can find on the anatomy of bird feet the better.

I didn't realize how long the claws are in relation to the overall size of the birds foot.

Finally decided to get back to the blog. Here is an abstract design I completed recently. It is part of a series of abstracts that I've been working on for sale through Society6 online. This began life as a black and white image, with most of the color laid in in GIMP.