The past six years have seen my do around five hundred paintings. During that time most of my sketch work goes unseen, as its the base of the paintings themselves. At the beginning of 2010 I found myself missing doing sketches for the sake of simply sketching. I did a short series of mixed media paintings that allowed me to incorporated sketches into the finished work. This furthered the desire to just sketch. I have always enjoyed working in MOLESKINE notebooks, and when I came across their 5 x 8 ¼ cashier notebooks, I decided to create a series of theme sketchbooks.
The Faces Sketchbook was begun while the Whispering Winds Skechbook was in progress. "Faces", was exciting because it allowed me to revisit old paintings and sketch my subjects they way I saw them before pigments gave them fresh skin. Also during this time I added new subjects into the mix. A few may evolve into the baselines for future paintings.
The first was the Whispering Winds Sketchbook. I love empty landscapes. I find it very meditative. The mind can wonder and pursue what ever idea catches its fancy. Were some people see a worthless stretch of land, I see deep emotion. I see the people who have walked its dusty contours, were dreams our found and lost. These landscapes are also ecological warnings. Many of the landscapes I do are of imagined sea bottoms after water has disappeared or green valleys burnt by the sun until all that remains is dust and rock.
