New works- "Night Lights" and "November"

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reworking two panel pieces.  Night Lights is a piece that I just completed yesterday, and it was the third time that I had painted the panel.  Originally the work was a drawing of the Space Needle on an original monotype of mine mounted on a birch panel.  In October, I painted over the drawing and created You are here (the second picture shown below).

I liked the colors in You are here, but wanted to play around with texture some more.  I ended up layering black paint over most of the painting and then using a palette knife to create the repetitive line effect.  I then coated the top of the painting with Galkyd, which created a high gloss. 

Night Lights was a fun piece to work on, and I don't think it'll see another transformation . . . any time soon that is. 

I've been drawing a lot lately with markers, too.  Sometimes I prefer working in pens because I don't have to worry about clean-up or dry time.   It's also therapeutic to sit for an hour and draw patterns. Here's an 8" x 8" drawing from this week called November.