"Turkey Day"

Watercolor 9" x 12"

Every Thanksgiving the Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial Page runs the official Thanksgiving Proclamations from the president and Virginia's governor. Instead of a cartoon to the right of the proclamations, we've run variations of cornucopia art I've done or a drawing I did many years ago of the first Thanksgiving at Berkley Plantation. This year, I decided to paint this watercolor of a pair of wild turkeys.

"On the Rocks"

Watercolor 10" x 13"

One of the great resources available to a newspaper editorial cartoonist is access to the paper's library (in the old days it was referred to as the morgue). The library of the Richmond Times-Dispatch is an absolute treasure trove of photos going back many decades, and I have spent countless hours over the past 30 years rummaging through many of the hundreds of thousands of photos neatly filed away alphabetically in huge file cabinets. One day, I came across an old black and white photo taken in the 1940s of an Army ship that had broken its moorings in a nor'easter in Maine and washed up on some rocks near a lighthouse. I decided to use the photo as reference for a watercolor. I did the whole painting using only burnt sienna and cobalt blue.

"Maymont Morning"

8" x 10" Acrylic on linen panel

For the past several years, I've donated cartoons to the Maymont Foundation for its annual fundraising auction. This year, I decided I would instead donate a painting. Maymont is a great place to find subject matter, and I've done several paintings "en plein air" on the grounds, mainly during workshops. So an August morning found me wandering the estate in search of something new to paint. I decided on the chickens at the Childrens' Farm.