Catching Up . . .

Before I go further, I'd like to wish my readers a Happy New Year and extend my gratitude for your support. I wish you all the best for 2012 and hope that the new year brings you peace, happiness and prosperity.

And now down to business . . . I'll admit I'm not updating my blog as often as I'd like, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I'll catch up with today's post - featuring a number of portraits I've finished in the last month or two.

Some of them had to remain secret because they were Christmas gifts. The odds of the recipients seeing this blog are pretty slim, but it's a karma thing - I don't like to reveal a portrait to the public until the gift has been given or the client has approved the final.


Morgan - Golden Retriever, 8" x 9", ink and ink wash on scratchboard
When I first went out to take photos of puppy Morgan, he had been playing in the kiddie pool in the backyard. I took photos of wet puppy Morgan and then his mom and I decided when he matured I'd take more photos. The result is this two-part portrait.


Cohan - Maine Coon, 6" x 7", watercolor on Yupo


Cohan - Version 2, mixed media on Aquabord (ink, watercolor, color pencil)
My client wanted a Petzazz style portrait of Cohan, but her husband preferred my more realistic style, so I did both! I scanned in-progress stages of the realistic portrait; one of these days, I'll make a WIP (work in progress) video of it.


Brutus - English Mastiff, 7.5" x 5", watercolor on Yupo (with some color pencil)
This was a long-distance commission. My client is in New Jersey and this was a Christmas present for her husband. She provided a wonderful reference photo and we communicated via e-mail and one phone call.


Roxie - Tortoiseshell, 2.5" x 3.5", pencil/color pencil


Mouse - Tabby, 2.5" x 3.5", pencil w/color pencil eye & nose
Sadly, Mouse had already passed and the portrait was a Christmas gift for her owner. My client had a limited selection of photos for me to use as reference, but I was able to make it work with one of the photos. There's more detail in the white area of her fur, but my scanner just didn't pick up those light pencil marks.

The portraits of Roxie and Mouse are ACEOs - small format art that always measures 2.5" x 3.5". See more ACEO portraits here.

Read more...

And Now, Back to the Art

Now that I'm home from Texas, I'm finishing up some new art for the Auburn Old Town Gallery. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm one of the featured artists for May and have been working on a number of new critter paintings on the Art Boards surface.

These are two that I had finished before we left, but hadn't had time to scan. They're both done in ink, watercolor & color pencil. The rabbit doesn't have much ink-work - just the eyes.


"Purple Pug", 4" x 4", Mixed Media on Art Board. Find "Purple Pug" items in my Zazzle Shop.


"Mr. Personality", 4" x 4", Mixed Media on Art Board

I always have a heck of a time capturing all the detail on paintings with large areas of white. The whites get "blown out" and lose some of the detail. I have a good scanner too, but there's only so much it can capture. And there's only so much time I want to spend fighting with the resulting image - on this one, I darkened the white areas just a touch so they wouldn't be so glaring, but beyond that, sometimes I have to throw in the towel and say, "the original is much better than the scan". Fortunately, I don't have to resort to that too often!

Here are the reference photos:


I must mention that "Mr. Personality" is Snoopy, a rex rabbit, and he belongs to Dianne Van de Carr, a friend and fellow Old Town Gallery member. Snoopy is quite the character and this is my third artful rendition of him.

Read more...

New Llama Art

A brief post for today. I've just listed this ACEO of a llama on eBay.


Llama
original drawing in ink & color pencil
2.5" x 3.5"

Click the image for the eBay listing. The llama didn't sell on eBay, so it's now in my Etsy shop. Click on the image for the listing.

Read more...

"Hey Kid" - Pygmy Goat ACEO

I started this mini (2.5" x 3.5") color pencil drawing in 2007! The poor little partly-finished goat was pushed aside until last month when I pulled it out to have on hand for the Autumn Art Studios Tour.



I finally finished it earlier this week and am very pleased with the way the color scheme turned out. I wanted to use a bright palette for this one, shifting the real colors of the chocolaty brown and grey goat to reds and oranges. It's all done in Prismacolor color pencil on bristol board (a heavyweight drawing paper). The pencils are back in their storage box, so I can't tell you the actual colors, but I used only two colors for the background (light blue and aqua) and shades of red, orange, magenta and yellow for the goat. The darkest colors are grape (the one color I do remember) and a deep purplish red. I also added some of the aqua color from the background to areas of the goat.





The drawing in progress. You can see my scribbly color notes around the edge of the photo. The colors on the left are quite different from the final drawing. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't bother to color correct this photo, or if I really changed things that much - probably a little bit of both.


The original photo in color


The color photo cropped to ACEO size

I've said it before and I'll say it again, even though I use photos for reference, I rarely ever use them "straight out of the camera". I look for interesting ways to crop them. I just love the goat's lower lip and eyes, so I wanted to zoom in on them. By cropping the image, it appears that he's coming out of the drawing. Much more dynamic than the original photo of a goat standing in a pen. Notice too, that I didn't draw his body on the right side, which also adds action by making it look as though he's just popped up into view.

Read more...

New Drawing to Benefit FieldHaven Feline Rescue

This is Noah, a kitten saved by FieldHaven Feline Rescue, now living in a wonderful home. Noah had a really rough start in life, he and his siblings were infected with panleukopenia - a feline distemper virus that was fatal to his littermates. This tough little guy pulled through though - thanks to the caring folks at FieldHaven. The effective vaccine for this virus is routinely given to kittens, unfortunately Noah and his littermates were found abandoned and unvaccinated.


This drawing is now available in my Etsy shop, click on Noah to see the listing.

The drawing measures 3" x 3" and is matted to 8" x 8". Drawn in graphite pencil with some color pencil.

Thanks to Joy Smith, the director of FieldHaven for providing the reference photo I used for my drawing of Noah.

Trying something new here - I learned about TipJoy on Twitter (where I'm annran5) and thought I'd start offering the option to tip my favorite charities when I post about them. So here goes: if you'd like to leave a tip for FieldHaven (as little as 25 cents would be appreciated) click here.

Read more...