Birds of the Month - Blue Jays AND Cedar Waxwings

I’ve been slowly assembling content for a new bird book and I’d been meaning to do a group portrait to show off how friendly birds can be when it comes to sharing resources and space.

I loved painting a few different bird types at the same time and digging into their little faces to find personalities. :)

Enjoy a process video and I’ll be posting the final piece early in 2025. :)

I’ll be donating 100% of the profit from sales of Some More Okay Birds to the Audubon Society, so stick around for release day somewhere in Q4 2025 to pick up some okay bird art while protecting birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow. :)

Pilgrims Sketch

Pilgrims is a series that I add to continually, it’s essentially a digital sketchbook of emotional live processing. Here’s today’s expressive sketch.

New Bird Book Painting!

Welp, after countless California Scrub Jay sketches and process pieces, I finally liked one enough to take it all the way to the finish line, say hi to Jerry!

California Scrub Jay - Aphelocoma californica

Jerry will be in my upcoming book, Some More Okay Birds, the proceeds for which will be donated to the Audubon Society, a group of people committed to evidence-based conservation outcomes that are good for birds (and humans!) in an increasingly hostile environment. :)

BONUS BIRB!

Little Blue Heron - Egretta caerulea

Some More Okay Birds -

Art is all about practice, so I’ve decided I’m going to kick off my next artbook’s production with a series of blog posts about my favorite birds and how I’m practicing my art.

First up, sketches! Typically I’ll assemble a reference board of about 8 or 9 different shots of the same bird and produce sketches of each while I try to take in all the various features of the lil’ guy.

I’ll typically produce a series of sketches like the ones below. I don’t obsess over details here, I’m just trying to capture a pose, or a feeling, or maybe just a bit of form.

I’m always looking for birds that look a LITTLE angry at you for being there. I like to feel a little subversive and making nature look angry at us is my little contribution to the conversation around human-animal relations. :)

Look forward to more of these little guys, I’ve got to put together 40 or more paintings for my next book, so there will be plenty of sketches between then and now. :)

- Jo

A singularity should be impossible.

I’m enjoying digging into process work for my latest personal piece, Singularity.

It’s a strange feeling to watch someone whose life was entangled with yours remove you from the digital record of their existence.

I tried to imagine going through every online account to grapple with the images of my marriage and then remove them. I struggled to understand the urgency.

Gradually, as little bits of our relationship revealed themselves to me over the next couple of years by popping up when I least expected them, I realized that a cleaner break isn’t exactly the worst thing.

The suddenness of her departure felt supernatural though. Like everything I had learned about the world vanished in an instant and I was never going to escape her event horizon, even if I couldn’t ever see her again.

After a lot of personal work, expressive experimentation, and making peace with life and the universe, I had a little cry and looked real hard at my favorite moment and then file it away for good.

Recapturing 2024

It’s been a tough couple of years. In between starting my site and now, my dad’s died, I’ve gotten divorced, and, probably, climate change has started to initiate a series of cascading climate emergencies.

At some point in the middle there, I started deconstructing my own process and I’m trying to unlearn some of the structure I picked up at school.

In all of my pilgrim’s series pieces, I’m struggling with pain and loss and trying to find something beautiful on the other side. Sometimes I find my way through and there’s something delicate and beautiful to accompany whatever dark story I began with.

We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side. I hope it’s another adventure.

Lenny's, BUT IN SPACE

I’ve been spending some downtime working on sketches for a fun T-Shirt idea for Lenny’s in Clearwater.

I love a good diner, and Lenny’s is, hands-down, my favorite restaurant. When the owner let me know he was looking for a new tee design, I jumped at the opportunity.

Work-in-progress, and what it really means to me.

Work-in-progress, and what it really means to me.

I don’t really sketch as much as I wish I could. Whether it’s life knocking on your door in the form of a day job, or anxiety about your loved ones dying en masse from a global pandemic, it’s not always the right time to just sit down and try to experiment.

But I did. This razorgirl piece beat me in the end, but I tried something new.

Read More

Shop is up!

The shop is up and running. I’ll be adding content here, instagram, facebook, basically anywhere you could see my work and then, if you’re interested, buy my work.

There was a time that I thought it was some sort of artistic sin to sell work, but fuck that shit, I need to eat.

<3

Everyone deserves to be seen.

I’ve embarked on a project to paint everyone around me as the crisis draws into relief everything I love and need. We need each other. Not in the way intended by platitudes about coming together, or leaning on me. None of our lives are possible without the people in them. That means EVERYONE.

Read More