Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! With 2009 coming to a close, I'd like to give thanks to everyone for your continued friendship and support. I am thankful for each and every one of you, and look forward to continuing sharing my artistic journey with all of you. Thank you. May you all experience a joyful and prosperous 2010! Let's have a great year!

Drawing Dreams Foundation

Girl, by Karen, age 10

I'm pleased to announce that I have been asked to contribute images on behalf of the Drawing Dreams Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Berkeley, CA whose mission is to help provide art supplies to children's hospitals, and other organizations where the need arises.

In appreciation of their support, donors receive notecards featuring art from Drawing Dreams' two online galleries: art by children, as part of the Children Helping Children initiative, and images from professional visual and performing artists, photographers, architects, athletes, scientists, and visionaries from around the world, as part of Artists Helping Children.

I am proud to be a part of this, and invite you to check out all the wonderful art in the galleries! Blackbirds are Gathering has made the headliner on page 2!

Happy Holidays, Friends

One of my favorite holiday traditions when I was a child was being allowed to unwrap one of my gifts on Christmas Eve while watching The Snowman. This beautiful animated classic, along with the entire series of Beatrix Potter tales brought to life on video, were favorites, that, to this day, I still love just as much as I did then. Since I've grown up, the beauty of this film's theme song never fails to make me teary-eyed. I thought I'd share it with you along with some personal photos, in hopes that you, too, will be moved to take a few moments out of your busy holiday schedules to revisit your imagination and walk in the air. :)

Wishing you all a joyous holiday season - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

"Summer's End"

24" x 18"
acrylic on canvas

Another painting completed a few weeks ago, that speaks of the fragility of all things born from the earth, and the inherent order and cycles that occur in the natural world. I came upon the concept for this in late summer/early fall when everything around us begins to slowly change to give way to a new season. These massive, mammoth sunflowers that grew in the garden and turned their heavy heads to follow the sun all summer long, had bowed, welcoming the autumn. When it was time to prepare the ground for next summer, I set the heavy, freshly cut bunch down and looked at them, finding them to be symbolic of so many things. A moth then peeked at me from behind a petal. This image flashed in my head on the spot. I love when that happens.

It's a natural feeling to want to hold on to things you know you can't preserve forever, and, before turning these majestic flora over to the birds and squirrels to feast on, I felt the need to record their beauty and the power of what they represented to me that day.

"Two Rural Sisters" Diptych

28" x 44"
acrylic on canvas

A recently completed set that I have been working on periodically between other paintings. Lately I'm enjoying working on several pieces at once, just to change up the routine a bit. With these, I intentionally wanted to create two narrative character portraits; a straightforward statement and tribute to both the beauty and harshness of country life. I guess my inherent love for Renaissance art, particularly its portraiture, lurked in my subconcious during the birth of the initial idea, hence why I think I settled on representing the protagonists in a more straight, formal, symmetrical fashion, accompanied by symbols that pertain to them. The strength and resiliency of the human spirit is one of the main themes running throughout this one, in addition to the sheer desire to simply go back and concentrate on the figure as a painting subject.

"The Distance Between Shores" OUT NOW!

Another book I recently illustrated is now out and available for purchase! Books may be purchased through Midnight Tea Poetry. A HUGE thanks to my client, Brian Tracy, for giving me the great privilege of teaming up with him again for this companion piece to Blackbird Ballads. The book made its debut at its release party on November 14, at Live at the Lounge in Hermosa Beach, CA, where it was celebrated with live poetry and music.

The poems you'll find in these pages are just beautiful, and I had such a great time using them as my muse for the pictures you'll find throughout. Order your copy today, and get a few more as gifts for the poetry-lovers in your life!


"Brian Tracy's exquisite poems evoke those "ghostlier demarcations" summoned by Wallace Stevens, another poet for whom the sea is muse. Because Tracy is a poet of powerful restraint and beautiful nuance. The Distance Between Shores is a book of delicately suspended, liminal spaces, spaces in which one hears whispers from the other world as well as 'the howl and hunger' of this one."

-Gail Wronsky, Director of Creative Writing Loyola Marymount University and author of Poems for Infidels and Dying for Beauty

"Brian Michael Tracy's elegant, meditative poems emerge from a landscape of mist and dream like lost beloveds. There's a quiet vigor and wisdom in this poet's work that comes from allowing the self to crawl inside silence and observe. The Distance Between Shores will astonish and fill you with the breath of life."

-Michelle Bitting, author of Good Friday Kiss and winner of the DeNovo First Book Award

"Spectrum 16" OUT NOW!

I'm excited to announce that Spectrum 16 is out now! I just got my copy in the mail today and it is full of AMAZING work by our best artists and illustrators from around the globe. The images in this annual are the work of absolute masters, and it still floors me to see my work published among them for a second time.

Get to your local Barnes & Noble or Borders, or order your copy on Amazon!

Feature about "Blackbird Ballads" and my work!

An article in the LA newspaper discussing the album, the people behind it, and my art!

Easy Reader: Three Brains are Better than One

Check it out!

Find me on "MyArtspace"

A whole new website re-design is underway, and in the meantime, I wanted to make you all aware that all my current work can be viewed on MyArtspace, a great art website, where my portfolio is kept current. The old website will still be up another couple weeks, and until the new one is up and running, MyArtspace is the new official spot to catch my updated portfolios. Spread the word! I was also selected to be in the "Featured Artist" spotlight on the site.

www.myartspace.com/andreakowch

Thanks! Announcements about the new site launch will be coming soon.

Hope you had a spook-tacular Halloween!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! I had a great time this year putting on my annual display for the neighborhood kids. It's as fun for me as it is for them! The front porch is my stage for a night, and I have parents often pulling out their cameras to make it a lasting memory for the little ones. It's a fun weekend of preparation where I whip out crafting supplies and create props for the porch, windows, and my witchy attire. :)



When all is ready, the scene is set to the organ of Bach's Tocatta, and the trick-or-treaters start walking up the witch's way. . .


Fun spooky silhouettes I made for the window, containing the
silhouette of my "twin" sister as she makes another batch of her
special brew. . . ;)


A phantom from Venice came to visit and joined me for the party.

As usual, all the fun ended far too fast! Looking forward to another "boo"-tiful one next year!