The Blood Cries Out

This piece started out in a masters class by Kirsten Stingle, on doing faces and hands.  I’ve always loved doing hands, but this class gave me several more techniques in creating accurate and expressive sculptures. As I continued working on the piece, it began to focus more and more on the topic of human trafficking […]

Les Misérables

This was a series of drawings as one of the local High Schools was putting on the musical Les Misérables.  Martin, who sets up the Life Drawing sessions, arranged for a number of the actors to come in over several weeks so we could draw them in costume.  During the musical itself, we were able […]

Work in Process…

Some people have asked me about my work process when I sculpt a figure. I took this opportunity to capture a few photos along the way as I was working on a figure sculpture, showing the various steps.

Full of Empty Leaves

Our pastor, Gary Franklin, has been going through a series called, Jesus- Unpredictable and Untamable, based on the Gospel of Mark.  This past Sunday, he went over the story in Mark 11 of Jesus cleansing the temple the day after the Triumphal Entry. Almost as a side thought, Mark tells of Jesus going up to […]

Into the Light

This sculpture is based off of a photo of one of the young artists I had the privilege to work with in Italy. When I was there in Italy for a couple of weeks visiting with the amazing group of artists who were participating in the three month Incarnate school, we had the opportunity to […]

Don’t Mess with Me

One of the other adults working with me with the youth group in our church is quite the martial arts enthusiast and  instructor.  I made this little fighter thinking of him. I have made many, many dragons, lizards and other mythical characters over the years, starting when I was a boy.  As an adult working in the […]

Foreshortening

One theme you may notice here is the reclining figure, drawn close to the axis line, with a lot of foreshortening. In the “Drawing from Life” sessions that I have been in (from which many of these drawings come), we are doing mostly around 20 minute sketches of a live model.  The room is arranged […]

Against All Odds

Clay – 17″ tall. It took me a while to decide on a title for this sculpture. I first thought of “Flight”, but the piece is more about the struggle to rise up rather than the freedom of flight. There are so many different forces which hold us down — forces which tell us there […]

Torn Down but not Destroyed

Clay, 11″ We often face times in our lives when we have been torn down.  But, we are not destroyed.  There is life still hidden in the roots, and it will come back to live as tiny shoots… (This piece reflects a theme which has recurred over time through some of my drawings and sketches.) […]

Transformed by Hope

The butterfly has long been a symbol of transformation, beauty, freedom and grace. In particular, it speaks of a transformation at the deepest level — not just a change in outlook, or a vague “hopefulness” that, “things will get better somehow”, but being fundamentally different.