Late Summer Seedheads

September 6, 2013September 6, 2013 | drawandshoot

The weather is shifting already and last night we had frost. It seems far too soon(!), but anyway, the flora is shifting with the temperatures, too.

I’ve been photographing these particular type of seedheads from my garden for over a year, through all the seasons (I don’t know what they are called). I can’t seem to make interesting photographs of them when they are still blooming, though. These are just some of the small remnants of summer, each one about the size of my thumbnail. I might try again while there are still a few blossoms left but it seems to be the transforming seedheads that my camera loves.

There are always new shapes and colours developing as the seasons change so I always find them interesting to photograph. I like how the tiny ‘tentacled’ seed forms look a bit squid-like in these images.

Many previously posted images of these (and other) seedheads can be found here.

How Does One Creative Process Shape Another?

September 1, 2013 | drawandshoot

I was poking through archives, thinking about a particular painting I’m working on and looking for a visual reference. Texture, colour, form … Perhaps I over-think these things … In any case, I found a bit of spring, and a bit of autumn. If you put them together it seems you don’t get summer. But anyway, it is these earthy tones that draw me in.

I remember walking among these young trees in the early spring, the water high, and the thin trunks appearing like lanky hoofed legs wading in a river mangrove. Their reflections moving like a deep gentle breath. What sort of creatures would be attached to these spindly legs?

Of course, there is no such thing as a mangrove here, but if there was, it would be in this place where the trees are living on the edge rooted in both water and land.

Like the shifting seasons – one foot here, the other stepping towards the next. Tentatively. So far.
As I write this there is classical music (mostly strings) playing in the background. Would my text be shaped differently if I had been listening to another sort of music? Would I have chosen different words or remembered these experiences the same way?
How does one creative process (in this case, listening) shape another?

[These images are layered photographs, made with equal parts of spring and fall]

Another Winged Thing

August 8, 2013August 8, 2013 | drawandshoot

Untitled. Oil, conté & graphite on Mylar 20″x24″. (These paintings always look so much better in real life, I think.)

A winged thing that is tied to water. Inspired from bits and pieces from the river shoreline, things now lying around the studio.

A studio view with most of the mess unseen.

(The other painting was posted previously here.)

Sliver-thin Layers and Double Exposures

July 30, 2013August 8, 2013 | drawandshoot

Sliver-thin layers and double exposures. From the series Surface, Submerge.

I suppose this image doesn’t seem to have much to do with the rest of this post but it is woven in with a fine thread…

In the past few months I have been very fortunate to be included in a couple of wonderful publications and I thought I would mention this as a way of perhaps introducing these magazines to anyone that might be interested.

The first is a gorgeous publication from the Netherlands called “Flow Magazine” and they included this blog(!) in an article all about nature blogs. (*Although the article is in Dutch, Flow Mag has recently started issuing international copies of their magazine in English. Also, I recommend checking out some of those other nature bloggers listed if you have the time.)

You can find a copy of that article here: Flow Magazine ‘Groene Bloggers’

I am honoured, also, to have art from my ‘Surface, Submerge’ series included in the latest print issue of Art & Science Journal along with some other very accomplished artists.

You can find that article here: Surface, Submerge
As well as print issues, Art & Science Journal has a very beautiful and interesting blog.

Many thanks to both of these publications for the recognition, and for allowing me to ‘reprint’ these articles [*copyright of these articles remains with each publication]. I hope you get a chance to check them out – click on the images below to be brought to their home pages.

Fluid Limbs

June 28, 2013 | drawandshoot

A double exposure (the figure), water reflections and merged layers. You have to learn how to swim in all this rain…

Long Days and Tall Grass

June 21, 2013August 8, 2014 | drawandshoot

(Untitled. Oil, graphite and Conté on Mylar)

It’s the first day of summer here and it feels like a true summer day with gently swaying grasses in the sunshine and strange insects in the garden.

[The first image is a painting/drawing in progress (I never know whether to call my pieces paintings or drawings – I guess they are both) and the other two images are photographs made with camera movement.]

The Journey

May 7, 2013 | drawandshoot

The spaces in-between. Not where you started from or where you are headed, but where you are. For that moment. Glimpses of passing spaces etched in your mind.

These photographs are mine but they grew from a seed that was planted in another place. Their story is here … it’s just a short train ride…

These images are cross-posted on the collaborative blog Journey of a Photograph. Please visit to learn more about the inspiration behind their creation.