top left: Twilight Mist, 48×48", oil on canvas
top right: Hanging Foliage, 14×14", oil & mixed media on canvas
bottom: Anise Series No.28, 27×48", oil, bronzing powder, and resin on canvas

Winter is a time for the trees to reveal their structure and inner rhythm. It's a good time to catch up with Ivy Jacobsen’s latest work. These fantasy landscapes help us to celebrate the season. We especially like Violet Sky, an etching with a hint of Asian influence and lyrical line and dot motifs.

Violet Sky, 9×8" (print size), 18×14" (paper size), etching and chine-colle on rag paper

Gleaming, 24×24", oil, fine paper, and resin on birch panel

Birds of Sonoma County is a series of acrylic on wood paintings by Pam Lewis. Pam currently resides on a small rural ranch and vineyard west of Windsor, in the lush and vibrant ecosystem of the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, California.

Pam’s paintings, prints and cards are available at Graton Gallery, located in Graton, California.

Birds of Sonoma County are also available in boxed card sets.
Please visit Pam Lewis’s Web site to see more.

 When Snow Falls is a collection of photographs by Alicia Bock. These wintry scenes reveal the bare bones of nature and the simplistic grandeur of a quiet winter's day. You can almost hear the snow falling.The original fine art photograph are availble to purchase at Alicia's online store.

Estonian-American artist Kristiana Pärn has created a series of acrylic and pencil on wood illustrations that have charmed us with a sense of innocence and a fairy tale-like, whimsical atmosphere. In Kristiana's fertile imagination, bunnies exercise and sleep in marshmellow trees, birds knit, foxes skinnidip, and polar bears sommersault.

Kristiana launched her art career at young age and studied painting and drawing with Estonian painter Marje Berlokko; she now resides and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Besides original paintings, Kristiana’s work is also available in large prints and note cards series. Please visit Kristiana’s Web site and Etsy store to see more.

As we move into the wet months of the year, we turn to Bill Shelley to appreciate what the water does to the landscape. Here we present two of his newest pieces painted on the spot at Northern California waterways -the Laguna de Santa Rosa and the Tomales Bay estuary near Point Reyes. Bill's masterful wet-on-wet technique and color choices perfectly capture late fall in Northern California.

Laguna – Wet Morning
11" x 9", watercolor

Tomales Bay
19" x 13", watercolor

You can see more paintings on Bill’s Web site: www.bshelley.com

We have previously posted about Randel Plowman's bird collages that immediately caught our eye and have made a lovely addition to our walls. Looking deeper into Randel's work, we gained a new appreciation for his collage skills when viewing the abstract pieces we have collected here.

Dispensing with imagery, you can see Randel’s skillful use of restricted color palettes, creating depth and rhythm while exhibiting a marvelous tactile sense. These pieces go well with some improvisational jazz.

top left: Fly Away     top right: Cross – Cut
bottom left: Premium     bottom right: Double Green Discard
4" x 4", Collage on paper

top left: Arrangement     top right: Posies
bottom left: Undone     bottom right: Whitman
4" x 4", Collage on paper

top left: 123     top right: The World Stops
bottom left: Be My…     bottom right: Number 26
4" x 4", Collage on paper

top left: Thinking About Red
top right: I Had A Dream We Were In Belgium
bottom left: Once Upon A Time
bottom right: Red on Red on Red
4" x 4", Collage on paper

Visit Randel Plowman’s Web site to see more.

Simplicity in life and art is almost always a good way to go, but can be deceptively challenging to accomplish. The photos of Jennifer Squires we have collected here speak volumes about the simplistic beauty of flowers, form, light and shadow.

Jennifer, a professional photographer since 1996, has spent her whole life taking pictures. Previously working out of Ontario, Canada, she now pursues freelance  work  in London, UK. Her photographs are available for purchase through her Etsy store.

To see more of Jennifer Squires Production, please visit her Web site:
www.jennifersquires.ca

As autumn approaches, leaves falling all around, it leaves us longing for the new breath of spring time. When we saw the recent creations of Thea Schrack, we felt alive with the renewal of spring again.

Thea Schrack’s latest works have gone in a new direction. Inspired by flowers found in her weekly farm basket, some as small as a little fingernail, Thea has intensified her attention to detail with these exquisitely crafted pieces.

Thea referred to this series as "Slow Flowers," like the Slow foods movement – a way of living and eating, good for the people and the planet. One could also see it as slowing down to experience all the small details in nature’s gifts.

Visit Thea Schrack’s Web site to see more: www.theaschrack.com

Alan Mazzetti is showing his most recent series at the Art People Gallery in San Francisco this month. Read the following to get a feel for Alan's thought processes and inspirations behind Particles.

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By Alan Mazzetti

I’m very excited about this new series – Particles.  It’s an evolution of the themes I was working with previously: showing changing relationships by depicting matter and energy. Within each painting, you’ll see different relationships between the circles: they’re single and in groups; they change scale; some are flat, some dimensional; some are mathematically precise while others are organic and accidental.

That’s why I use circles as an icon – it’s elemental enough to stay true through these different incarnations. The big difference technically – and visually – is that I previously started with a digital transfer of my circular icon representing matter and energy.  Replacing that is what I call an event – a circle made of smaller circles that suggests a dimensional object and simultaneously a reflective light source.

In addition to the changing relationships within the painting, each one is composed so that you can change the way it hangs.  Every new orientation will emphasize different elements within the piece and change your perception of it. You continue the creative process begun in the studio.

I think one of the most important functions of art is to encourage us – both the artist and the viewer – to see things in new ways.  These paintings are meant to continually change your perspective.

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Visit Alan Mazzetti’s Web site to see more.

We found Ivy Jacobsen's arts at the Hunters Point Ship Yard open studio. Since then, we have been visiting Jacobsen's Web site and continuing to admire her art. Shown above is one of her recent paintings, titled "Finding Home in a Tree" – private collection, 36×36", oil, bronzing powder, & mixed media on canvas.