StudioDrawdy

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“The Distance”
Acrylic on gallery-stretched canvas
24x18x1.5”
There’s something about a canoe that slows everything down. No motor, no rush, just the sound of water against wood and the person you're making memories with.

This painting was inspired by a trip my son and I took through the Boundary Waters between the US and Canada. On that trip, we navigated over 50 miles of lakes, rivers, and portages. Long stretches of quiet, in awe of nature, broken up by the work of carrying provisions and a canoe from one lake to the next. This old red canoe has carried a lot of trips before this one, and it’ll carry plenty more after. Whenever I leave my home, I travel beside a river that is dotted with people enjoying the cool waters that flow down from the North Georgia mountains. Occasionally I’ll see a canoe exploring the waterways of North Georgia. The Chestatee, the Yahoola, all those quiet river stretches where the only sound is quiet conversation, the paddle dipping in and out of the water, and the occasional whirr of fishing line.

Some of the life’s best conversations happen that way, organically, when nobody’s forcing them.

I’m still working on this piece but it’s so wet from paint I’m having to take a break to let it dry. Additional highlights to the water and a fishing pole up front are in its future. Im also thinking of adding text so it looks like an old Re*****on advertisement…thoughts?

A sneak peek into my process.
This one has been painted and repainted while I try to satisfy my inner critic! I am working out how my style translates into a landscape.
The canvas in this picture is upside down. My brain has a recognition system called schema. It sees a tree, decides it is a tree, and quits looking. Flip the canvas and the tree becomes shapes, lines, and values. Proportion errors show up. Value misjudgments show up. The composition gets critiqued on its own terms instead of on what you expect to see.
Today I am working details in a tree and shoreline.
Headphones on. Zach Williams turned up.
Turn your phone upside down. You may can tell what this one is going to feature.

When you tell a client it will look exactly the way they imagined it, the pressure is on.

An interpretation of the Georgia state flag. It’s painted in acrylic with so much texture that you can see it across a room. It was then framed by the fine folks at Dahlonega Print and Frame (thanks Randy). It now is watching over Bradley’s office where it resides as a statement piece and conversation starter with everybody who walks through the door.

Thank you, Bradley, for asking me to take this one on.

“’Tis the Season”
Acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas
16 × 20 × 1.5”

Every year I paint a Santa. Every year I tell myself, “this year, keep it classy.” But every year, somewhere between the first sketch and the final coat of varnish, my sense of humor takes the wheel.
This year’s result: ’Tis the Season…proving that a deep love of Christmas, an 8th-grade sense of humor, and a paintbrush are sometimes a bad combination.
Santa saw the sign, came for the free milk and cookies, grabbed the milk and said “bottoms up,” and then regretfully saw the elf’s bottom…Santa didn’t read the sign’s fine print.
Original is not available, but canvas reproductions and prints are on the way — DM to get on the list.

“The First American”
Benjamin Franklin
Acrylic on gallery-stretched canvas
20”×20”×1.5”
Finished on America’s 250th birthday — July 4th, 2026.

Every color on this canvas was mixed for a reason. The light side of Franklin’s face is a build up of warm golds and ochres. Those reminded me of the color of candlelight and a printer’s-lamp color. Franklin created many pamphlets, letters, and persuasion by that light.

The shadow side of his face carries a deep, quiet red. Here it is a nod to Franklin’s understanding of the true cost of the Revolution. Franklin was the oldest man to sign the Declaration. He knew what his signature meant and what everyone was putting at stake.

The heavily textured background is built over Prussian Blue while his coat carries the cool grays of a man who never let anyone see him sweat. Look closely at the texture of the background and you’ll find small veins of green worked into the dark. This green is my nod to him gracing the $100 bill.

Franklin was famously the calmest person in every room. Whether he was in London taking abuse before Parliament or in Paris charming a monarchy into bankrolling a republic. The blues in this painting are France. Without the French alliance he secured, there is no 250th birthday to celebrate. And the small surprises of teal and rose around his eyes are a nod to Franklin’s other pursuits.
Happy 250th, America.

I’ve been walking with a plain stained wood cane since my stroke. It’s done its job…but let’s be honest, it needed personality. So I broke out my acrylic paints and got to work making it as bright as many of my paintings. Because I figured, if I’m going to carry a big stick, it might as well look the part! Now I’m ready for the fourth!!!!

Friends of Sagamore Hill

“Unalienable”
President Thomas Jefferson
Acrylics, stone mortar, and collage on gallery-wrapped canvas
30×40×1.5”

Thomas Jefferson is turned to face the viewer’s right so his back is to the collaged handwritten Declaration of Independence behind him, he faces toward what came at the end…the final words he would write before his death in 1826.

To his right are his last letters: his final letter to the University of Virginia, the school he founded; his last letter to his old friend and rival President John Adams; and his own gravestone design, where he chose to be remembered not as President, but as author of the Declaration, author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of his university. And the letter declining the invitation to the 50th anniversary of American independence…a celebration he would never see. He and President John Adams both died on its exact date: July 4, 1826.

The stone mortar border is a nod to how he’d be remembered: enshrined in marble at the Jefferson Memorial and carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore. The man who carefully chose the three accomplishments on his own gravestone could not have imagined the marble and granite that waited for him.

The Declaration wasn’t just philosophy…it was treason against the Crown, signed in ink that could have become a noose. In 1781, the British cavalry rode hard on Monticello to capture him; he escaped with just minutes to spare. The man who wrote that all are created equal was, for a time, a wanted fugitive the British fully intended to hang.

The title, “Unalienable,” is the word Jefferson chose to describe rights that can never be taken from a person — no matter what. A fitting name for the man who spent his life defending them, and for a face caught between the revolution he began and the final words he left behind.

Once he fully cures he’ll be on display at the Bleu Gallery in Dahlonega, GA.
Collector inquiries welcome. Ships for free anywhere in the continental U.S.

#1776