Gathering Stories
My sketchbooks are where ideas slowly evolve before becoming paintings. My ideas don't come from a singular space. I gather ideas from old family photos, antiquing, daydreaming, I write, I draw, I paint loosely, I allow the conversation to happen with the canvas slowly.
A painting isn't something I construct. It's something I uncover.
I gather stories from...
Old Family Photographs
Vintage Objects
Flowers & Birds
objects worn by time
Southern Imagery
the conversation
The Layer Beneath
The underpainting holds every possibility. Nothing has been resolved and yet everything is beginning to emerge from the canvas. The story begins here.
I love the rawness of the underpainting. It’s like the purest form of painting. No over working or overthinking. It’s just me, a long-handled brush, water and paint. It’s taken me years of practice to become confident in figurative work. I only started this journey in 2022. Recently I’ve taken to only using Payne’s Gray for the studies and the underpaintings in the larger works. The paper dolls still receive the colorful underpaintings.
I could stop here every time.
Why? Because I feel they are done. At that stage they are saying enough. But if I don’t render them more their worlds wouldn’t come together like they do.
I don't paint figures into existing places. I build symbolic worlds around them. Every botanical form, bird, textile, and repeating pattern is carefully researched and created to deepen the narrative. These environments are not backgrounds; they are part of the story, revealing what the figure carries, protects, remembers, or hopes for.
the beginning
the next layers
the start of the background
Finished Painting
House of Hearts Sketchbooks
I created the House of Hearts Sketchbooks because I believe every creative journey deserves a beautiful place to begin. My own sketchbooks have long been companions—holding memories, observations, color studies, and questions before they become paintings. These journals invite others to begin their own creative practice, whether through drawing, painting, writing, collage, or quiet observation.