Llamatized!

Just a short post for today.
I "llamatized" my cell phone recently and wanted to share the result. I found out about Unique Skins from one of my Twitter friends (CallMaggie). She had put her artwork on her iPhone and I looked into doing the same for my cell phone.

The process was relatively simple with their on-line layout. I opted for the "scratch resistant skin", then selected my cell phone model which brought up a design template for my phone. I plastered the template with images of my Llemon-Llime Llama painting. In less than 10 days I received the "skin" which was die-cut to fit my phone and went on easily. I'd describe it as a "heavy duty vinyl sticker". I had to make a tiny cut in two tabs along the side so the skin would fit better over a curved part, but otherwise, the skin fit perfectly.



The photos are a tad blurry, but it's pretty obvious that my phone is now covered in llama!

Oh, and that's our dog, Magpie on the phone screen.

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Sammy - Yorkshire Terrier Portrait

"Sammy" - Yorkshire Terrier, 4" x 4"
Ink, watercolor & color pencil

Another painting on the Art Board surface (Cold Press Watercolor Panel). This is a companion portrait to Sydney's (see my last post) and Bailey's (see this post) portraits.




I didn't make a full series of in-progress scans for this portrait, but I do have a scan and a photo I took during the process:


Watercolor (background) and ink (eyes, nose, mouth)
He looks so disapproving at this stage!


Watercolor washes added to Sammy.
The next stage involved adding more watercolor for detail.
That's the stage I didn't scan.

For merchandise featuring Sammy, visit my CafePress and Zazzle shops.

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Sydney - Golden Retriever Portrait

"Sydney" - Golden Retriever, 4" x 4"

This is my 4th painting on the Art Board surface (Cold Press Watercolor Panel) and I really like what I can do with it. I wrote more about the surface and my technique in this post and you can see the three previous paintings.



Sydney always seems to have an issue with "crazy ear" - the hair on top of her left ear is out of control, so I tamed that down a bit for the portrait.



I've painted Sydney before, in a portrait with her "brother", Sammy the Yorkie:


"Sydney & Sammy" - 8.5" x 5.5"

Another portrait of Sammy is in the works, also on the Art Board surface.

As I worked on this mini 4" x 4" portrait of Sydney, I scanned it at three stages so I could make a WIP (work in progress) video.

As I mentioned in the previous post about the ArtBoards, these are now an option for commissioned pet portaits. This "art board style" is a hybrid between my looser "Paintings with Petzazz" watercolor on Yupo pieces (like the one above of Sydney & Sammy) and the far more detailed ink on scratchboard, mixed media on Claybord or pencil portraits. As you can see in Sydney's portrait, I like to tweak the color palette a bit to make a more vibrant portrait than the pet's actual coloring. Visit this page of my web site to find out more about all the options available for a custom portrait of your favorite critter. For merchandise featuring Sydney, visit my CafePress and Zazzle shops.

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Chihuahua-palooza!

These are the last two of six individual chihuahua portraits for my clients. As I posted previously, I had done a portrait of their first four chihuahuas all in one drawing (scroll down to the bottom to see that drawing).

Then, they added two new chihuahuas to the mix and decided to have individual portraits done of all six dogs. Click on any of the following names to see their portraits: Mija, Reina, Niña and Chica (I guess I never posted Chica's portrait to my blog, so the link will take you to the page from my web site).


Mora - ink on scratchboard, 5" x 5.5"



The reference photos in color and greyscale



Aime - ink on scratchboard, 5" x 5.4"
In case you're wondering, she's a chihuahua-yorkie mix


The reference photos in color and greyscale

Both portraits are in the same shades of warm grey (from the India ink washes), but Mora's is very light, so I had to do a bit of work in Photoshop for it to show up well. The scanned version I've posted here is a bit darker than the real portrait (and a bit more yellow, but I didn't bother to change the color cast of the scanned file). The nice thing on the originals is that not only is there a lovely warm tone, there is a lot of texture which comes from the scratches I make in the ink on the scratchboard surface. It's really hard to capture that depth of detail in a scan of the lighter animals. But you can get an idea of that texture in the close up I posted with Mija's portrait.



The first four dog drawing

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