A watercolor giraffe, enjoying a taste of the air. I like painting animals without a model or picture sometimes. It brings it all back home for me, that being the way I started. I used to never use references, thinking, "well that's not creative, your basically just copying". But soon enough I started using them, and really liked it. I realized how different the paintings really were than the pictures, how you can add so much feeling to, say, a cat portrait, and there definitely is creativity involved. I still think I like painting from my mind better, though. Its a lot more fun, not knowing whats going to come out sometimes.

KJ and Smokey

Here are my friend Katie's dogs, KJ and Smokey, in watercolor form. They're really cool canines, I'm glad I got to paint them.

I like Turtles!

9"x 12" watercolor of three turtles enjoying a campfire beneath a fingernail moon.

Wet Cowboy

Strawberry Banana and the Wolfish Wish

And now for something a little juicier than dirty dogs and cleaner cats. Here's a recent watercolor of a strawberry banana man finally getting what he's always wanted, the chance to become a werewolf. He stands there, offering up his elongated neck to the hungry beast, a peculiar little grin on his long unhappy face. The werewolf, being more than happy to oblige, is about to tear into the fruit-flavored throat with his horrendous teeth.

Now back to posting. I'll start with some of the watercolor pet portraits I've been working on.

Easterling