Small rattlesnake moving across the trail at Arastradero Open Space Preserve (Palo Alto, California).

In a white empire gown, the ghost of Lenore communes with a raven (inspired by the "The Raven" poem by Edgar Allan Poe, "...when, with many a flirt and flutter, in there stepped a stately raven from the saintly days of Yore."). With a touch of the steampunk, her necklace has a silver key dangling from a chain with burgundy glass beads. The full moon outside the open window illuminates the ghostly blue landscape of distant cypress trees and drifting clouds, the night sky dotted with stars. In this haunted Victorian parlor, calla lilies climb the striped wallpaper. This Gothic fantasy landscape is an original acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped stretched canvas (the 3/4" sides are finished off in red oxide (sort of an orange-brown) acrylic)--no need to frame. It has been lightly varnished to protect the paint and preserve the lustrous colors. The copyright watermark does not appear on the actual painting.

Finished the room today:

I was going to do dark drapes but then I realized it was pretty likely the raven will end up in front of them and I wanted to make sure he shows up.

I hope to do the ghost of Lenore & the raven tomorrow & finish it up :-).

I very seldom do work-in-progress shots but I'm working on a new piece that combines my "zen moon" with more gothic elements. My favorite poem has always been Poe's "The Raven" so I thought I'd take a hand at doing a painting or two from it. This will (eventually) be the ghost of Lenore with the raven. I started out with a blank canvas and used artist tape to mask off the window. This was to both help give me guidelines to work with and to keep me from unnecessarily filling up canvas with sky, then covering it over.

Next, I painted in a night scene using prussian blue, white and a little pthlalo blue:

I still had prussian blue on the palette so I blocked in other elements (deciding on striped wallpaper):

And now, I added some warmer tones with raw sienna and red oxide:

That's it so far. I plan on doing a "sponge" effect on the wallpaper, and hopefully adding calla lilies to the stripes. After that, it's the wooden window frame. Then the drapes. Then the ghost of Lenore & the raven.

Starbee, an ice-white maltipoo puppy, curiously approaches the seashells and rocks scattered on the pebble beach. A maltipoo is a maltese and poodle mix dog. The inspiration for this piece was that amazing purple rock, which I saw at the tidepools in Moss Beach.

Starbee is my mom's puppy and she will be keeping the original painting. Prints and pendants are available

It's the time of year when I particularly start thinking about all things spooky. Here's the new painting, The Halloween Tree, with black cat and crow:

Prints and pendants are available.

Been working on a new haunted tree painting (getting in the mood for Halloween, I gues :-)). Mostly in oranges & purples. The background and main part of the tree are in. I think I will finish the tree, then decide what other elements to add. Probably, a cat & crow.