I've been in Cleveland, Ohio, for the last six weeks while my boyfriend did two medical rotations there. On my last day in Cleveland, I finally got myself over to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Honestly I'm mad at myself for not going sooner because there was so much to see and I didn't get to it all in just one visit.
On display was an exhibition by a British artist named John Taylor Arms. He did amazing, detailed and gorgeous etchings of Gothic architecture in Europe. His work is so precise and detailed, they even provided a magnifying glass to observe the etchings. They were fairly small in size, roughly 9"x12" if I had to guess. Some were smaller. I would think it would be difficult to work much larger than that, given all the detail of the etchings. I was so drawn to his work because I love his style and I love his subjects.
I am absolutely fascinated by medieval history and it is one of my favorite time periods. I've had the opportunity to travel a lot though Europe and see some old Gothic architecture up close. And I want to see more. Looking at his work, it was exactly the sort of thing I would love to do myself. I took some photos, which I will share on here but I only had my camera phone, which isn't the best quality. And there is some glare from the glass but I tried to take the photos at angles that gave the least glare. So I apologize for the poor quality photos.
I hope you enjoy these etchings as much as I did. If you would like more information on this artist you can of course google him or go to Cleveland Museum of Art's website.
So back when I was a senior in high school ('02-'03), I discovered Guns N' Roses and became obsessed. I was in love with Axl Rose and anything Gn'R. For one of my senior art projects, I drew a portrait of Axl. I labored over this drawing, as drawing faces has always been very challenging to me.
As much as I still love Gun's N' Roses, my obsession has faded a bit and I would like to give Axl a new home. If you're interested in purchasing my drawing, please contact me. The drawing is fairly small but comes with black matting and all together is a little smaller than 9"x12".
Well, it's done! Cluster of Plumeria, 9"x12. Watercolor on paper.
I had a lot of enthusiasm for this painting when I started it, but by the time I got to those leaves at the bottom, I think I was a little tired of it. I painted this using a photo reference I found on the internet. Maybe I just can't wait to go to Hawaii and get my own photo references of these gorgeous flowers. Maui in T-3 months and 24 days. I cannot wait to get there!!!!
In the meantime...here's another recent watercolor painting I did of some plumeria. This is about 5"x7" ish....I made a wedding card for some friends a few months back and I painted this inside. The photo isn't very good, sorry about that. It does look nicer in person.
I've just completed a painting I've been thinking about for a while. I actually drew my picture on the canvas in late June or early July and hadn't gotten around to painting it until this week.
Sorry for the not-so-great quality photo. I left my camera in Poland accidentally and all I have right now is my camera on my phone. I have a friend with a "real" camera (as opposed to my point-and-shoot) and I want to try to get some more professional pictures of my art soon. ANYwho...
So I painted (most of) this with a palette knife (the exception being the background because I wanted it smooth in contrast to the flower and also the stem because I got sick of the palette knife). My original vision for this painting was to have it a little more abstracted than it is, but I really do struggle with abstraction.
Also, I had to do a lot of experimentation with mixing reds. Red isn't a color I use a lot and I had a lot of trouble creating a very light value red. I liked my dark reds, but lights were trouble. In my reference photo, the rose was sitting in front of a window with light shining through the petals. I wanted to get that bright, vibrant light value but I don't think I did. I think I got a medium red and had to compensate by making the other values darker than they were. That is ok, but I still wanted that light value and I couldn't do it with out adding white and making it pink, totally wrong. If anyone has any suggestions for this, please leave me some comments! Thanks :)
My inspiration for this painting was a photo I had taken of a rose that was wilting. If you've seen some of my other flower art, you might notice I like to capture flowers when they start to droop. I sketched it and sort of scribbled it for shading in my sketchbook, and thought it would make a really cool painting. I wanted the painting to be more like the sketch, but oh well. I'm still pleased with the way it turned out.
I liked the idea of having more straight and sketchy edges. Maybe some day I'll try it again, perhaps on a much larger scale.
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!
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"
So I know I still haven't finished my watercolor painting of Plumerias yet (I know, I'm such a slacker...) but I have been working to set up a little business selling custom drawn wedding gowns. It all started with my best friend who got married last year. She asked me to do a drawing of her dress and of course I did.
Everyone who saw it thought it was really nice and a great idea and I've had a few requests since then for drawings. Talking some more with my BFF who is in the wedding gown business, she said this is an up and coming thing, and designers are starting to do sketches of their dresses for their bridal customers. So I figured, why not give it a shot? I took the leap and opened up a shop on Etsy today and I'm really excited about it. Check it out for yourself!
My Etsy Shop
