I am currently working almost exclusively with archival Staedtler fine-line permanent marker on full sheets of Arches 140-pound hot-press watercolor paper. Sometimes I work in pastel, also on watercolor paper. 

I usually work in series, producing a number of variations of whatever idea I'm trying to work out.  Most recently I've done dozens of non-representational ink drawings and ink-on-paper collages, in sizes ranging from 5 x 7 to 22 x 30 inches.   I've also played around with some watercolor-paper collages -- cutting up large pieces of paper I've saturated with as even a wash of pigment as I can manage.  Unlike the representational work I've done over the past few years, the collage work is more spontaneous, working itself out step by step, instead of being planned from photo to sketch to drawing.  One piece leads to the next -- compliment or counterpoint. 

My representational work uses the same types of ink-work -- stippling, scribbling, lines, circles -- the only difference, to me, being a recognizable, rather than a suggestive, outcome.  Viewers, however, respond to my abstract work very differently than they do to the pieces with subject matter.   Everyday subjects that catch my imagination are my jumping off point.  A casual glance might say simply "pussywillows" or "ribbon" or "dog."  My hope is that, with a closer look, a piece will intrigue the eye enough to invite contemplation of the exquisite ordinary things in our lives.  The point-counterpoint of  geometric tiles merging into and separating from the intricate topography of a black and white dog.  A stripped-down negative space that eddies and flows around the sinuous outline of a cat -- or the angular form of a proud picket fence.

I work towards my compositions via line, shape, negative space, and the balancing of quiet versus active areas. I want the eye to have plenty of space to rest, to breathe, until it has a chance to feel the pull of the area that wants to be examined next.  My work is finished when a piece delights my eye each time I first catch sight of it: that persistent little "ahh!"   No matter how clearly my mind's eye has seen it, the final product is always a surprise.  Which is just a reminder - as if I needed one - of the yawning abyss between the world inside my head and the world that surrounds us all.