Graphite

Home For The Holidays

Hursley Manor is one of a dozen Victorian summer homes on Lawyers Hill in Elkridge Maryland. As a child, I enjoyed climbing the huge evergreens in summer and sledding on the wide snow covered lawns in winter.

In the mid 1980s my brother Jeff purchased the home and began restoring it. I created this 17" x 25" drawing as a Christmas gift for him.
The Hartman Generations

Jim Hartman was a little Pennsylvania boy hitching a ride on his grandfather's haymow in the mid-1940s. His dad can be seen in the background standing atop the hay truck. 

In the mid 1980s, pancreatic cancer was taking its toll on Jim. He showed me an old WPA photograph of this scene, telling me all about Ned the horse. I asked to borrow the photo, and created the 17' x 25" drawing for him. Framed and hung over the mantel in his living room, it kept him company until he passed.

 After The Fire

I arrived too late to sketch this 19th century mill in southern New Jersey. It had just burned the previous weekend, and the acrid smell of the tragedy was still in the air. All the water in the mill pond could not save the 150 year old wooden structure.

I sat outdoors for 5 hours in the lower field, sketching the remains of the once beautiful old building. My brother Cliff admired it, so I gave it to him.

14" x 20" on acid free paper.
Our Partnerships Succeed

This is one of a pair of pencil sketches submitted for a commission in 2005. I was asked to create a pair of 7’ wide oil paintings for the corporate boardroom of an import/export agency located in Philadelphia's Navy Yard.

I chose to illustrate the seven continents as cloud formations drifting above the Navy Yard skyline. Air, sea and land transportation command the lower third of the artwork.
Diana Visits The Drake

This Art Deco building, The Drake, stands 35 stories tall in Philadelphia, and in the mid-1980s was in less than stellar shape.

In this 17" x 25" drawing, I  chose to float the building's astonishing Moorish crown above the clouds, and imported Diana, Goddess of The Hunt, from The Philadelphia Museum Of Art. She conjures as a whiff of smoke, offering a hope and prayer that someone with money and good taste might invest in the building. 
Philadelphia Academy Of Music

In 1987 this drawing sprung to life on my drafting board. I measured out and proportioned every detail using a treasure trove of fresh reference photographs. Arnold Grossi, violinist for The Philadelphia Orchestra, purchased the 17" x 25" graphite drawing.

The PHILADELPHIA TREASURES series required dozens of hours each to see through to completion. Emerging from a handful of these studies, I faced my desire to break free of the studio, beginning a decade of plein air pastels, sketching outdoors to completion in a single session.