friends and art in Montana

As everyone knows, I have been spending a lot of time out west this last year and have fallen in love with Montana as a very beautiful place. I have also made some amazing friends who are both lovely people as well as talented, I am always in awe of people who can paint realistically and Mark Gibson is one of them. His sense of light and texture with oil paints is incredible to me. He has a great sense of detail and dedication to his subject, as well as an impeccable sense of humor! His wife Lisa, whom I adore is quite talented on many fronts fro P.R. to managing a family, also makes jewelry, which I love. I don't have tons of images for her work, but hope to get some more up soon. Together with their two gorgeous children Josie and Cal, they are quite the family. They are always working on new projects so check them out from time to time...

"black, white and blank"

I mentioned before that I was working on some sketch books whilst in Montana. I had planned to work on more but the kids took over most of the day and then there was a lot of wine and grilling to be done in the evening. I had a few lovely days in the sun where I was able to do some drawing and painting and I like the simplicity of it. There are few colors and the bright white against the creamy almost yellowed paper is just gorgeous to me, but the white lines on the dark blue gray forms of paint are my new favorite things to make.

I have a few projects in the works right now and after I send of Kodie to summer camp tomorrow and finish my shoot early this week I will be getting back to work on some of these things.

But here are some pages to view from my new book "black, white and blank".

the cover of the book

and then what...

brunch and tea towels

So we went for brunch at Pam and Jim's place this morning which was super delicious (thank you Pam!) and Pam who is an awesome stylist had this amazing tea towel with this yellow cross hatch pattern on it that is probably my favorite color yellow and so I looked it up to copy her and buy the same thing! This place is amazing, they make really beautiful stuff. The illustrations on everything are really great and simple and the colors are lovely. Here is the link, can't wait to get my stuff in the mail!

Back in NY for a few weeks

I arrived back to NY 2 nights ago and it was quite a shock to the system. I went straight back into shooting the next day and that was fun, but a challenge to get my head around since I have just been surrounded by nothing but natural beauty and loud children for 3 weeks in Montana.
We saw so much and it was great inspiration for some sketches. I am heading to bed, but tomorrow I will post the new work I made when I was there this time. There were some drunken collaborations with myself and Herb, we aim to make more in a few weeks, maybe not at 3 a.m. this time...

Here is a photo from a bacteria mat in a hot spring in Yellowstone that I just love. I am working on a cnavas right now that is inspired by these formations, the colors and forms are beautiful