A Black Cat Halloween

In honor of Halloween, I'm going to share some small paintings I've done of my brother's black cat.  I love this guy and I take tons of photos of him whenever I'm home for a visit. (He's very photogenic).  Several of these photos have  become references for paintings.  They're on the small side, the largest is only 9"x7". 

Watercolor on paper, 9"x7"

Watercolor on paper, 3.5"x2.5"
Artist Trading Card (ATC) size.

Cut paper, about 1.5"x2".

Acrylic on mini stretched canvas, 2"x2.75".  


Happy Halloween!

Hair Painting Tutorial

In my last post about Sister Painting II, I said I would get into the details of how I painted their hair.  I found an interesting way to do it, so I thought I would share.

The painting itself is fairly large (20"x24" is large to me, anyway!), but the figures themselves were small.  I knew my friend loved the intricate hairstyles with braids and flowers, and that was going to be pretty detailed. I really wasn't sure how I was going to tackle that, so I just dove in and found a way through trial and error. I was originally just painting the hair medium brown and trying to add the dark and light highlights separately, but being so small, any detail was getting totally lost and didn't look good.

I realized it's much easier to paint on a light surface, so I painted all the braids and highlights white and then slowly added in the darkest details and shadows on the braids. I left the lightest parts white, because I was going to go over it with a glaze, later.  I also painted highlights and shadows where there were no small details.

After the darks were all put in place, they reminded me a lot of lino cuts or woodblock prints, and I thought that was pretty cool.  

I then glazed over the white with a few transparent coats of lighter brown, so the hair would have highlights and show off all the intricate braids.  It ended up that the girls in the painting have a little lighter hair than they do in real life, but that's artistic license ;-) I know my friend really loved the braided styles, and her sisters all wore their hair in styles like this for her wedding, so it was important to showcase it.

The fourth sister, the girl with the lose, flowing hair, I don't have a lot of in progress shots. Hers was very simple and I used a similar technique, painted the lightest sections white, filled in all the darks, then glazed over with lighter brown at the end. 

 For the final details, I put flowers in all their hair. 

Hope you enjoyed!

The Next Sister Painting

I've finally completed a belated wedding gift for my best friend's sister (who was married in June of last year).  When my BFF got married in 2011, I did a painting for her wedding gift.  It was a painting she had seen when we were together somewhere and it stopped her in her tracks. I later went back and photographed it and decided to paint it for her.  It was a scene of four girls in Victorian/Edwardian dress on a beach facing away towards the water with a little dog and sailboats in the distance.  I modified it slightly to personalize it.  My friend has three sisters, so the four girls were perfect.  I had all the dresses be the girls favorite colors, which most already were and only changed one dress from a pinkish orange to yellow. I also took out the original little dog and put their two border collies in.  My friend was marrying an engineer who works on an "articulated tug and barge" so I put it in the water among the sailboats, so he could be part of the painting as well.  I don't know the original artist, as I couldn't read the signature on the painting. I tried google and found similar artwork which was probably the same artist, but never found that painting. Here is my version.  Acrylic on canvas, 12"x24" 

 My friend and her family all loved this, and when her sister got married this past year, she really wanted a "sister painting" also, but set in a nature, garden setting with lots of flowers.  Her wedding reception was in their back yard with lots of beautiful flowers everywhere, lights and lanterns in the trees, very earthy and pretty. 

This painting was going to be more of a challenge, because I wasn't copying from something else and I had to make the whole thing up myself. I used countless references I found online and my own photos and mashed it all up into one (hopefully) cohesive composition. 

Sister Painting II, acrylic on canvas, 20"x24".  I put the two border collies back in here and my BFF's cat she got last year.  I have the dogs chasing a rabbit, but don't worry, the rabbit gets away. ;-)  Of all the references I used, I never copied any of them exactly, even from my own photos.  It all just kind of evolved on its own.  

 This girl is my best friend, since her favorite color is pink and she is standing my her little kitty who is swatting at some fish in the pond. She is the oldest, and the matriarch of her family. 




















This is the next youngest sister, the one I did the

painting for.

The third sister, who I actually had to model for, since I could not find a reference that had exactly what I wanted.  The hair though, is not mine. ;-)

The youngest and the tomboy of the family, which is why she doesn't have a fancy hairstyle like the rest. ;-) I think she may actually be my favorite girl here. I love the way she is sitting, I love the way her hair is flowing and the strap carelessly falling off her shoulder.  She might show up in some other artwork later on. ;-)

Hope you enjoyed!  I actually really love the hairstyles on the girls, and the 3 girls with the intricate styles were a bit of a challenge and I found an interesting way to paint it.  I'll save that for another post. :)

Flying Shark

Last year, I got an offer though one of the various art related emails I get to test some new paints.  I was told I would get some acrylic paint samples, and when I had tried them I had to fill out a survey and get a free paint brush as a thank you. Good deal!

Well, the paints showed up MONTHS later, after I had given up on it.  I had been getting emails asking to please complete that survey asap, even though I hadn't gotten the paints. When they finally showed up I tried them right away and tried to do the survey, but I was told it was expired. I emailed them and explained I had only gotten the paints the day before and to please let me fill out the survey (I really wanted that damn paint brush). But they never responded and I was out of luck.  The paints were also in tiny little containers, barely enough for a small painting. I got I think 4 colors, the three primaries and white.  So I grabbed a little 4"x6" canvas and painted a sky and sea. Very simple, but I thought pretty cool that with dark blue, red and white I got the variety of colors of blue ;-) 

So I had this little blue canvas for the last year, unsure what else to do with it. I thought I'd put a boat in there somewhere but then thought that was too boring, too expected. A boat on the sea? How original!!  

Then it hit me...Sharks! I don't see too many paintings of sharks, so that could be fun.  I've always loved Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, which is where I'd seen the "flying sharks".  Only in this one specific place (I can't remember where) the great whites leap out of the water after their prey.  Now that would make a cool painting. So yesterday, I did this:

And since it was kind of a funny little painting, I put a pirate ship in the background because, well, why not. 

Acrylic on canvas, 4"x6"

Apartment Art

We moved into a furnished apartment here in Scotland.  I don't know if it's common to have furnished apartments in the United States, I've only lived in houses.  Living in Poland and now in Scotland, furnished places are very common and they usually come with some kind of artwork.  

In our friends' places in Krakow, I'd noticed a lot of cool artwork.  The two apartments we had in Krakow had none whatsoever.  When we came to Scotland, the few pieces hanging on the wall were absolutely awful.  Of the 3 paintings, only one was acceptable.  Not something I would have picked myself, but it was allowed to stay on the wall. The other two may have been painted by the same artist (no, I didn't bother to even check) but they both had the same icky, muddy palettes.  One was a large framed rabbit that was just creepy and ugly.  Muddy colors, I think the rabbit had red eyes...maybe I'm making that up, I don't remember. We took it down and put it up in the storage area and hung our own stuff in it's place (a round Aztec calendar from Mexico and a large, wooden carved face from Jamaica that we call Bob), but there was still the ugly painting above the dining table.  

The painting above the dining table was a food painting.  Now, I am a big foodie, I love food, I love to eat, I love paintings of food and a painting of food above the dining table is something I would really like. But this painting was another that just looked like it was painted with mud.  I did take a picture of this one before it got banished to the attic space with the creepy rabbit. 

Now this is just bad.  It looks like maybe artichokes and garlic and a coffee/tea pot? Either way, blech. I wanted something brighter and more cheerful.  I'd love a food painting, but I wanted to do something quick and fairly easy and painless, as I have a lot of other projects I need to work on.  A good still life of food in that large size would take months.  So, I did this:

Queen Anne's Lace (or as it's called in the UK for some reason, Cow Parsley...) 30"x30" acrylic on canvas.  I think it looks much better than the muddy veggies that were there originally. 

I found this picture on Pinterest and thought it looked simple enough and I just wanted to do something quick so I kind of copied it.  I was originally going to do something even simpler, more a graphic dandelion with the little petals flying away but then it evolved into this.  Either way, I'm happy with the result and the more cheerful look it brings in. Good bye mud, hello sunshiney sky and flower :-)

Landscape Commission

     Finally, a new post with new artwork.  I'm sorry I've been neglecting my blog for so long, I've been crazy busy with commission work and haven't had time to sit and write about them.  I'm the world's slowest painter and it's been taking up all my time.  But I'm very glad for this commission work because my "day job" has had no hours for me. Literally. I haven't been to work since before Christmas. No good.  So earlier this summer, I had a family friend ask me to paint her dog, (see blog post Portrait of a Dog)  another person we know ask me to paint a landscape (kind of a re-do of a painting she already has and loves), one sale on my Etsy shop of a wedding bouquet (see blog post First Sale From My Etsy Shop!) and my neighbor asked me to do two paintings for him. The first one I forgot to take a picture of, but I have pictures of the second one I just finished yesterday, and I'll write about that one in another post. 
     Here is the landscape.  I actually call it the Moonscape.  Acrylic on canvas, 16"x20". 

And here is the original painting she had:

She loves this painting because she grew up somewhere that looked a lot like this painting and it brought back happy childhood memories.  The painting is very 80's though and very pink.  She asked me to re-do it, and I chose to do it at kind of twilight, which she was thrilled about, since it is her favorite time of day.  I also made the moon much larger and dramatic, because I love the moon.  I changed the format as well from a panoramic to standard size canvas.  She chose the size, the original was too large and she wanted it a bit smaller.  
     She was thrilled with the final painting, I wasn't home when she came to pick it up but my parents told me how happy she was.  She had written me a check and wrote lots of "thank-you!"'s on it.  That is my favorite part of doing art for other people, knowing that they're happy with what I did.  It's a relief too! :)

Pin Up Girl!

My best friend is celebrating her one year wedding anniversary early next month and asked me to do a painting for her to give to her hubby as a gift.  They both love the vintage pin up girls from mid-century and she had even decorated his college dorm room with cute vintage posters of them.  She asked me to paint her in the vintage pin-up style wearing the things she had on their honeymoon.  It doesn't look exactly like a vintage pin up because she is wearing more modern clothing, but the idea of it was so cute.  I think this will be the next thing I put in my etsy store, custom artwork of yourself or significant other as a pin up girl! 

Watercolor and acrylic on hot pressed (smooth) watercolor paper, 8"x10". 

Portrait of a Cat

I took a photo of my cat a few weeks ago and have wanted to make a painting out of it ever since.  I had another mini canvas floating around with a painting on it I didn't love.  So I gessoed over that and painted my kitty.  I'm liking this little gem much better! 

This is Shinobi.  Acrylic on mini canvas, 2"x2 3/4" on a mini easel.  I painted the edges gold.  You know, one of these days I either need to buy a professional camera or find a friend who has one to take pictures of my art for me.  Looking at the painting sitting right next to me versus looking at this picture, the photo distorts it a bit and the colors aren't quite right.  The background blue is brighter than the photo shows.  Anyway, enough of my camera problems.  

I had done the painting of my friends dog and it made me want to paint my cat.  I did this painting today, took me a few hours.  I'm so bad at keeping track of my hours on artwork, I really should do that...So I made up the chair he's sitting on, in reality he was sitting on a bench in front of a window and I didn't think that would make a great background for a painting.  I'm happy with his little chair.  :)  And I did the background blue because I wanted to keep it simple and I liked that color blue.  Hope you like!

Portrait of a Dog

A family friend had asked me to do a painting of her dog, Roman.  I actually don't do very many drawings or paintings of animals and thought Roman would be a fun challenge.  He's a pure white boxer with one bright blue eye and one brown eye.  The eyes were actually the most fun part of the whole painting (especially that crazy blue one!).  I had a lot of fun painting him and my friend was very happy with the finished piece.  That's always the best part of doing any art for someone, when they really love it.  So here he is: Roman, Acrylic on canvas 16"x20"

Plumerias

If you hadn't noticed, flowers are one of my favorite things to draw and paint.  I love their delicate, organic shapes and colors.  I've been known to go through phases of flowers, having a different favorite every year or so. A list of some favorites include orchids, plumeria, sunflowers and currently, the gerber daisy. But I've been going back to the plumeria a little bit and it reminded me of an old acrylic painting I did that I wanted to put up here. I had several different sized mini canvases (canvaii?) that I didn't know what to do with. I collected them thinking, "they're so cute!" and then I wondered, "what am I going to do with all these tiny things?" I sat down with them and tried to think of an idea to use them all up, and realized they all fit together perfectly! So I made a single painting with all 8 little canvases. 

The painting in total measures about 8"x6".  The 6 canvases on the sides measure about 2x2 3/4...they should be 2x3" but who's counting? The long skinny one is 2x4" and the square at the bottom 2x2".  I really love this little painting, but I have yet to find a good way to display it without nailing 8 holes in the wall. ;)

For A Change...

I've taken a short, small break from painting flowers to paint this mini (3x4", acrylic) seascape. I want to do a larger version of this, or something similar. I love the colors of the sea!

I painted this from a photo I took in Olympos, Turkey last year. The Turkish west coast is absolutely beautiful.

Finished Flower

I finished the small 3"x5" acrylic daisy!  I am not able to get a very good picture of it, I've taken so many and NONE show the background color accurately.  It's much more violet than blue.  The top left corner is straight out of the tube prism violet and the rest of the background is a blue violet color, not just blue. I wish you could see it in person, I don't love these photos:

 This one is too dark ^^^ and this one is too washed out vvvv

But you get the idea :) Meanwhile I'm still working on the watercolor and colored pencil daisies. I'll post pics of them when I'm finished! 

Inspired by Strathmore workshop...

Hi Everyone,
It's been a while since I've posted on here! I've been playing around with some mixed media stuff and some watercolors and watching the video workshops Strathmore has put out and have really enjoyed them so far. The first workshop was open in January and the second one opened this month. The first workshop was mixed media and faces called "Doodles Unleashed".  I've forgotten how much fun it is just to doodle and draw stylized faces. I haven't done that since grammar school days, doodling away in my notebooks (and of course getting in trouble for it). 

 I bought one of the Strathmore Visual Journals in mixed media, size 5.5"x8". For the background I first took a large brush and just plopped down some turquoise watercolor. I then mixed turquoise blue watercolor with some blue and violet pearlescent liquid acrylic ink in a spray bottle and sprayed the paper so it has a bit of a sparkle in the light. I took some scraps of lace (I worked in a bridal salon and we have in-house alterations. There's a scrap box with the fabrics they cut off when they hem dresses. So many great pieces of lace!!) and laid it down on the paper and sprayed again so there was a subtle lacy patten. I then drew my girl in pencil and the flowers behind her. I wanted to do all the flowers in just writing (like the one next to her head) but it was getting a bit tedious. I wrote lyrics to Eric Clapton's "Change the World" (just because I love that song and it was playing while I was making this). There is really no special meaning to any of this, just playing and having fun. I enjoyed drawing the birds flying out of the wisps of whatever that is coming out of her hand and playing with her hair with those shades of blue and purple. I really need to draw more faces, it was too much fun :) Other supplies I used were micron pens and Caran D'Ache watercolor crayons.
I also played around with drawing some octopus' (octopii?) just because I love drawing them too.  Their arms (legs? tentacles??) are fun to draw and they're just really interesting creatures. 

 This one is more pearlescent liquid acrylic ink, gouache (opaque watercolor) and micron pen outlining the octopus. This was more playing with backgrounds, playing with the acrylic ink. I just love this guy :)

This one I mixed up the background with blues and oranges. I splashed down some golden crimson watercolor and then took that blue mixture I mentioned before and a swirly cardstock template and sprayed it, so it left behind this blue, shimmery pattern, which reminded me of octopus legs (tentacles? arms?) so I went to town with more octopii just doodling and having fun. The little black guys were done with a micron brush pen while the alien octopus with the hat wad just a regular micron pen. The large blue guy is acrylic. The little guy in the top left corner I saw on the internet somewhere and I loved how cute and simple he was so I copied him and the one on the bottom is my own, as well as the one with the top hat. Hope you enjoyed my doodling! :)