color drawings

Welcome to my pages of color drawings spanning multiple decades. These works vary in theme, size and style. Just me exploring a simple palette with simple media. Enjoy!

ABRAZOS

EIGHTH STREET STUDIO

This is a series of 36″ x 36″ collage and colored pencils drawings on paper that were primarily explorations for future paintings during my years at my studio on Eighth Street in West Berkeley in the early 1990s.

URBAN STORIES (the drawings)

In addition to my love for creating visual art, I love words and storytelling and have often added my writing to artwork. This series of 9″ x 12″ drawings with narrative text accompanies a series of paintings of the same name that was exhibited at Subterranean Gallery on Bancroft Way in Berkeley, CA. (See Paintings page to view that segment of the series). Each drawing is done in pen and ink with Prismacolor pencils with my own hand written words. They are meant to be experienced like pages torn from a book…or from a life story in progress. In total, there were almost 50 individual stories shown in the exhibit, of which I present a small sampling. Here is the curator introduction to the exhibition:

“Likely or unlikely stories. We are all writing the narrative of our lives. One step at a time. One-way streets, back alleys, sprawling boulevards, rocky trails take us to and through our destinies. Do we turn left? Do we turn right? Each intersection decides our next paragraph, beginning or ending of a chapter. Sometimes, detours are necessary. Choices are made that sketch us into the world; we add color, texture, layers and become someone. We become other than we had planned or imagined ourselves to be. Change course, reinvent. Engage in unexpected acts. Commune with an often times unanticipated cast of characters in the theater of life.

In the urban environment, one collects myriad sensory input, bumping into or intentionally interfacing with the intermittent and contrary forces of nature: hot and cold, creative and destructive, delightful and disturbing, substantive and hollow, resilience and frailty. Balancing the Shiva/Shakti principle, we navigate the dichotomy of the human experience. We carry on.

Who are we. What stories do we have to tell. Or not tell. Cry out, stay silent. Sing your truth. Clarity, shadow, honesty, pretense. Likely or unlikely, we create our urban stories. And hopefully, like the lotus, we all float lightly in beauty amidst the muddy waters, come what may.”

WOMEN IN COLOR

I love this series I did in 1991 for its simplicity and color schemes. Several pieces were sold without being documented, unfortunately. But many were used as studies for later paintings. Adding to the fun of doing this group of drawings was an impromptu exhibit and party to share the work at the home of Anja Borgstrom, 460 Alcatraz in Berkeley, CA.