JWill Arts | Expressive Architectural and Landscape Sketching

Rooted in more than two decades of professional landscape design, JWill Arts is an ongoing drawing and painting practice that explores place, structure, and memory through expressive architectural and landscape sketching.

For over twenty years, my work has been in two dimensions, using pen, ink, and alcohol markers to produce hand-drawn landscape plans and renderings. That same language of line and color gradually evolved beyond the drawing board into a personal body of work focused on old buildings, working landscapes, boats, and fish, rendered with immediacy and restraint.

Working in alcohol marker, watercolor, and mixed media, the drawings move between architecture and environment. Subject matter includes weathered churches, roadside bars, coastal vessels, river scenes, and quiet landscapes. Locations range from Central Texas and South Louisiana to sketching trips in Italy and Croatia, where drawing on location became a way to slow down and see more clearly.

Some pieces incorporate spiritual and contemplative elements, including Islamic calligraphy and esoteric references drawn from Greek and Hebrew. These elements are used as a symbolic structure layered into the work rather than as a literal illustration.

This practice has led to private commissions and exhibitions as a featured artist in local galleries and libraries in the Lake Travis area.

This gallery represents a parallel practice, distinct from yet deeply informed by the same attention to craft, proportion, and sense of place that guides my landscape design work.

Mentors and Instruction

My approach has been shaped through study with James Richards, including ten days of sketching on location in Tuscany, as well as coursework with Albert Kiefer, Felix Scheinberger, and Alex Hillkurtz.