Portfolio – Page 2

Rebound – 23 x 17 inches – watercolor and ink on paper

November 14, 2013 By Mike Lyon

Small drawing, unusually narrative, colors just a teeny tiny bit saturated.

Team Sukkit for Epsten Gallery and Jewish Museum

September 30, 2013 By Mike Lyon

Summer, 2013, Debbie Kaplan Glassberg recruited me to be “Lead Artist”, Sukkah Kit Team, ARTicipation: Abundance Garden Tasting & Sukkah Tour, The Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS. Debbie Kaplan once approached me with the idea of a kit sukkah and I replied with some simple sketches of plywood or plexi […]

Carrie Robe – watercolors and inks on paper 77 x 44 inches

September 3, 2013 By Mike Lyon

I painted a large sheet of heavy watercolor paper with numerous layers of red, yellow, and blue pigments in water, then drew in black and white ink. I particularly like that one hand is drawn only with black and the other only with white while the interplay of the squiggly ink hatches recreate the illusion […]

The Bohemian Zine Woodblock Prints and Drawings

July 4, 2013 By Mike Lyon

I was invited to design the covers for the July, 2013 Bohemian zine – four of the staff were kind enough to model for the cover drawing and the editor modeled for the ‘insert print’ which we folded up and saddle stitched inside as the centerfold.

Most electricity now comes from my solar array

June 26, 2013 By Mike Lyon

Brightergy did an absolutely incredible job showing me how I could do my part to reduce carbon emissions and help the environment and showed me how affordable that could be – after incentives, about 12 to 18 months break even. Wow! Unfortunately, because half the cost was to be reimbursed by the reluctant Kansas City Power […]

Jill – 88 x 44 inches ink drawing and watercolor painting

April 30, 2013 By Mike Lyon

For my 61st birthday in June of 2012, my mother-in-law treated my family and me to dinner at the fabulous Rieger Hotel Restaurant. We were seated by a very tall and slender (and gorgeous) hostess who was showing a lot of tattoo ink. I said I would love for her to model for me and gave […]

Linda – 25 x 16 inch color pen and ink drawing

April 6, 2013 By Mike Lyon

I wanted to try to realize something closer to naturalistic color. I’d tested a Japanese pen (Pilot Choose) with pigmented inks which, unlike most pens I’ve tested, would continue to write until the ink was gone. These were advertised as permanent with excellent light-fastness. I needed to learn how the colors blended when overdrawn, so […]

Addy and Arthur – pen and ink drawing 81 x 44 inches

March 11, 2013 By Mike Lyon

March 11, 2013 I completed this drawing. I painted a large sheet of exceptionally heavy hot press watercolor paper with many layers of carbon black, yellow, blue, and magenta pigment. It produced a wonderful dotty grain and the color quality, though neutral, is so satisfyingly complex and varied. I began drawing Addy and Arthur. Arthur […]

Max Fashion 2004 – woodblock print

March 10, 2013 By Mike Lyon

In 2004 I shot a bunch of photos of my son, Max, wearing his hair a little spikey, shirtless in heavy boots. I wanted to refresh my moku-hanga woodblock printmaking skills. The prints were hand-pulled from 16 ash blocks using baren (traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking) on 23 x 13 inch sheets of Iwano Ichibei’s gorgeous […]

Madeline and Kit – 88 x 43 inches pen and ink drawing on watercolor

March 4, 2013 By Mike Lyon

March 4, 2013 I completed a larger than life drawing over painting of my studio assistant, Madeline Cass, and her friend, Kit Landwehr. I drew the outlines of the color areas on the heavy drawing paper, then laid mylar over the drawing and hand-cut the color shapes with a sharp blade, being careful not to […]