Gallery > Paintings

In the springtime in Texas, sidewalks and edges of roads are piled with crunchy or wet catkins -long twisty tree flowers. After seeing a rusty image on a sidewalk, a catkin stain from a rainy day, I just had to do a painting with the imprints of catkins in it! I gathered some dried catkins while on a walk and stuffed them into my pocket. In my studio I laid them out around the perimeter of a piece of Yupo (a plastic watercolor "paper"), and began dabbing burnt and raw sienna around them , pouring some darker browns as well. Since birches are a catkin-bearing tree, (though these were probably from a pecan or oak) I painted three birches in the central part. Their peeling white bark gives me a peaceful happy feeling.