Milo, Swallows and the Light is a series of blind contour pencil drawings, Chinese style ink paintings, and dots of watercolor paint. I have always enjoyed contour drawing. Mr. Robinson, my favorite high school art teacher, introduced me to vine charcoal figure drawing, and I continued the study in many years of college classes. With the blind contour method my eyes go around and over contour surfaces and my pencil follows with one line without stopping. It is always a surprise to see how it turns out. About 10 years ago I found a step by step exercise in painting a swallow with 8 strokes. I immediately saw a world of possibilities in paint the birds in groups, with flowers, combined with pastel or watercolor, and now around cats. I have made thousands of swallow paintings, and demonstrated the ink painting technique to hundreds of groups of children. The dot of watercolor is a counterbalance to the movement of the birds and the weight of the cat. It could represent the sun, a bright light, or the spirit of God. In many of the paintings Milo and the swallows seem aware of or drawn to the light.

Milo the cat enjoys sunbathing in the light. He is amused by the zipping around of the little birds. The swallows feel the energy of the light, and are moved to fly in rotation around Milo. They are comforted by the sound of his gentle sleeping purr. Milo and the swallows dance gracefully to the life force of the light.