"Saddle Peak Sunset"

My favorite urban cowboy takes his snorting Suzuki DRZ dual sport out regularly to carve the canyons up above Malibu. He took his camera and brought me back some vistas from Saddle Peak Road. It looked pretty cool up there! So the next time I took my own not so snorty but very sweet Yamaha supermoto up there with him. What a ride! We stopped at several vantage points, and from one we could turn in a circle and see 100 miles worth of So Cal from way up high. It was red flag windy, and it pushed us around a bit, but it was worth it to see the ravens playing with the powerful currents. They hovered at a perfect station, then rolled over into side slips and rolls, throwing themselves with total trust in their own acrobatic ability into the gusts. I did this little 6"x4" oil on canvas as a small way of remembering that ride.

"Small Pan, Big Egg"

SOLD

I used to be in the antiques business on the side, and this is a leftover small collectible toy cast iron skillet. 100 years ago and more, little girls had replicas of their household's big cast iron wood fired cook stove, complete with all the cast iron cookware, and they could actually cook with them to a small extent. I also deal in vintage and antique images, and I had a marvellous photo some time back circa 1900 of 5 little girls cooking around one of those stoves. I love cast iron, especially for cooking; I suppose for the same reasons that made me a sculptor in my previous life and a car and motorcycle and bicycle buff now. I like metal! So I cracked an egg into this neat little skillet for a still life. It's actually brighter than this, I'll need to add it to those paintings that need to go outside to be photographed over. This is a 6"x4" oil on canvas.

"Red Eyed Tree Frog"

This painting is still wet, so I apologize for the glare. This is a 6"x6" oil on maple panel. I love tree frogs, I think it's that they have a gem like quality, like some reef fish, that is dazzling to the eye. There is a fun family collection of these frogs in the form of molded plastic toys in our bathroom window. I figure it's humid there, they'll be happier. We always have to look at museum stores to see if there are any color variants that we don't have yet. There was a show at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History last year, and this guy was on exhibit. I took a photo of him just before he jumped. It was tough to capture his glow, but I think when I varnish this piece, it will pop the colors more.

"Nocturne"

I used to be a sculptor. About 20 years worth. Here's one small piece to fill some space, til some paint dries!