This is the first of pair of scratchboard pieces. It would probably help if I explained what scratchboard is. They come in sheets of stiff posterboard or masonite that was coated on one surface with a type of white clay. Then the board is coated with black India ink and dried. You create your work by scratching through the black ink to reveal the white clay underneath. 

It's fantastic for detailed work and the high contrast is an eye-grabber. But it's also fussy to work with and unforgiving with mistakes.

Scratchboard with watercolor, second image of a diptych.

My first real digital painting done in the late 90's for a class. I used Photoshop to combine two scanned pencil drawings and for all the colors. 

Watercolor on Clayboard textured panel I did in class at the community college. 

This was my final project for my first watercolor painting course.

Several years ago I had a neat bonsai tree that unfortunately got infected with spider mites. It was a long battle between me and the mites but I lost. I used an airbrush to paint the tree with light coats of gesso and painted it with watercolors. Then I got a big dish to make a little zen garden. I didn't make the salamander. 

Pointillist image on scratchboard, partially inspired by my first experience with sleep paralysis (aka "Night Terrors").

I devised a new tool to help do the pointillism: a small disk of rough sandpaper glued to the top of a pencil. It allowed me to do lots of small dots in a section at once.  

I need to get a better resolution scan of this image though.

A long time ago in school I drew doodles on my homework papers and whatnot. Then one day I made one that looked a bit like this and really liked it. Gradually I refined the design and made it symmetrical. Finally several years ago I settled it into this final form in a sketchbook. Recently I took a picture of it, cleaned it up and set it on a black background in Photoshop.

There are tons of Celtic knot designs out there but to my knowledge this one is original to me. It works as a nice logo I think.

Yup, did my last name in scratchboard. Orignally the intention was for all the letters to be solid white, like the initial M, but while filling in the o, I made and interesting scratch pattern that I decided to continue through the rest of the letters. I think it turned out pretty neat.

This is the final project for my first ceramics class made in 2000. It's a combination of coil and slab construction and it's easily one of my favorite pieces.

Slab form plate. I sprayed a flat black glaze onto the partially dried form and scratched out the design using a scratchboard knife. After the the design was done the plate was dried completely, then fired. A clear glaze was sprayed on and then fired again so it's nice and glossy. One of my favorites for several years until I broke it. :,-(

Same process used to make the Orchid Plate. 

Some day I'm going to do an extensive series of these.

Raku fired, made early 00’s.

Wheel thrown high fire stoneware, early 00’s. One of the first successful pieces still in use.

Same mug, three views. I made this in 2009. Yes, partially inspired by the Easter Island heads but mostly inspired by laziness and not wanting to do the eye bits. It's a bit heavy so I don't actually use it much. High fire stoneware.

Bisqued in the early 90’s, raku fired early 00’s.

Pattern is called Bavarian Crochet, aka "Wooleater". 

The pattern is by Andrea Mowry

It took about nine months. Made with Alpaca Silk DK yarn from Expression Fiber Arts.

I've always liked mushrooms, both food-wise and as design elements. I adapted some mushroom patterns I found online with wire and heavy base concepts to make some neat home decor shrooms. 

At seven feet across this is easily the largest thing I've crochet or knitted. The yarn and pattern kit to make this was a Christmas present from my parents and it took about a year of off-and-on work to finally finish it. 

Now it hangs in my bedroom across from the bed. It's so much nicer to look at than the TV that used to be there.

This is my first effort at the cathedral window afghan re-purposed as a wheel cover for my car. 

The front view. Yes, I bought a mannequin head for this kind of picture. Very handy.

The matching hat. 

Entrelac is a knitting style where the pattern looks like it's woven together. It's really nice and sure to impress. I made this for my mother. with a matching hat to go with it. Alas, it doesn't get very cold in Vegas so she doesn't get to wear it as often as she'd like.

Made with Dream In Color Classy with Cashmere, worsted weight yarn. I love this stuff and it's my go-to "house" yarn. With 70% merino wool, 20% cashmere, and 10% nylon it's buttery soft and a real pleasure to work with.

We were driving through early morning, to get the best light. Alas, there were lots of clouds in the way so it wasn't a great day for photography. Fortunately the clouds broke just for a minute for me to get this shot. Best one of the trip.

Monument Valley is a really pretty place where they shoot lots of movies because of the interesting mountains around here. Most of the REALLY cool stuff is off road and the whole place is on an Native American reservation. 

It was really cloudy this morning and it was tough to get any good pictures. Here's one not too bad.

This was taken while on a cruise of the Alaskan Inside Passage, up one of the arms to see a glacier. Glacier melt-water has such an unusual color.