Aspens, owls and deer, a work in progress

This is what I've been spending most of my evenings doing this past few weeks.  Painting, a glass of Moscato, sometimes watching Sherlock Holmes.  Man I'm a dork.  But I've found it's a much better way to spend my time then surfing the internet or watching TV.

I thought you might like to see what goes into the process of

Draw out my trees and animals, mask out what I want to save.

Masking takes several hours to do. Plus masking fluid smells like a rotten mouse in a dirty gym sock. blech. I then taped off my margins

This is the fastest part. Laying out the wash. Only took about 15 min to get this far.

After it dries (my watercolor board warped - no biggie), I start laying in more details.  (Sherlock BBC playing on my kindle as I paint!)

Giving the leaves more texture. It's the beginning of dozens of layers.

The fun part! Removing the masking fluid. It's very cathardic.

You can see the tree detail here. I guess I didn't take any pics while painting the trees. Which takes FOREVER. Especially since there's several dozen trees here. And I'm anal about it.

Trees are done! Time for the critters

My owl in the tree is finished.  I love this little guy.  So cute.

Final touches on the flying owl. Kinda proud of this pic... shot upside down so I could shoot with my left hand. LOL

Beginning washes on my deer.

Ahh... instant gratification, pulling off the tape when finished!  It's very much like an instant frame!

Finished flying owl.

Finished deer.  Well, almost I think.  I really feel like they need something else so I might do some more touch ups.

It's 40 inches long, 20 inches high. Biggest piece I've done (and probably will ever do).

Click here to see it larger.

I did this painting this time, just because I felt like doing it.  I'd been pressuring myself to work on show pieces and I wasn't doing as well.  I decided to cut myself some slack and I enjoyed the process much better.  I've also decided to start working on some pieces for a book I want to do.  It may or may not ever happen, who knows but I'll share some of the pieces as I go.  I'm thinking if I have fun with it, and create some pieces I love, then a show will just happen, and maybe that book will be a great tie-in for a show.

I keep having people ask me how much I'll sell it for, and this I have not decided.  Not sure if I even want to sell it, which is really bad for a buyer because that means I'll mark it on the high side.  If you make me give it up, I'm going to make you pay for the priveledge. LOL.

I'm not very good at this sales thing am I?

What I've been doing is....

 

Getting ready for the Sugar Plum Festival!

 

It really kind of snuck up on me.  Well, literally, thank GOD I mentioned it on facebook because someone pointed out that my days were off.  Which really threw a wrench in my schedule.  I sure thought I was on top of things.  Oops.  I was off a whole day.  That could have been really embarassing.

 

and maddening.

 

Anyway, I'll be there for 3 days showing my work, which includes the Aspens above (20x10).  I don't have as much done as I'd love to have done, but when you're just starting out, it's hard to have a lot of things!

 

If you're nearby, please come visit.  Thursday evening 5:30-8:00 (preview), Friday 10-8 and Saturday 10-4.  There's lots of artists and vendors that will be there.  They take down the whole museum and set let the vendors take over!

 

Pictures soon.  Lots going on, haven't had time to post.

 

Cool treats - happy memories

I have a lot of happy memories at this little ice cream shop from my childhood.  I can remember making special trips there with my grandma in the summer.  An occasional special treat, sometimes going with friends after school and a few times our bus driver even let us stop on the last day of school (free small cones).

Every special little person in my life gets to make a trip here with me at least once, because I want them to see how awesome it is too.

So when we took Bailey for ice cream a couple weekends ago, I decided that it would be a fun place to paint!  I snapped a few reference photos and set out to create a painting to be proud of....
and I am!

This is the modern day version of the ice cream shop with a 1954 Chevy truck in front.  I picked this because it was first opened in 1954.  Even the license plate is appropriate for the county in that year!

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and this is something I'm going to keep for myself.

Not that I have a singular wall available to hang it on.
LOL

hi ho a painting we will go

My world has been pretty nuts the past couple weeks, but I've still found a little time here and there to paint.  I decided to take a 100 day/100 painting challenge to increase my skill level in a short time (if that's possible - sometimes I think I have 2 left hands).

I'm really working towards an art exhibit at a local art museum in the next couple years, but first I need to settle on what is my style.  I thought I might be able to find that in 100 paintings.

Below are a few of my recent paintings, some part of the 100 painting challenge.

Tinkerbell on the left is a gift for a little girl. :)  I direct copied someone else's work.  Sometimes you just want to paint. 

Top right is a feather I found in my yard.  I believe it's an owl feather.  I LOVE painting feathers.  I'm only so-so at it so far.

Bottom right is a simple little cottage painting.  I painted it after watching a video on youtube.  It's "ok".

A cow from up the road.  I really fought with the cast shadow on his neck.

Really like this one.  My own design.  I love feathers AND the union jack.  I saw a painting that made me think - "Hey, mash the 2 together to see what happens".  I like it.  I might play with this concept a bit more just to see what I can do with it.

This is my own design too - well, pretty much.  I looked at a lot of nests from other artists.  Nests are hard son!  The little deer is from a photo I found online.  Put the 2 together and sweet lil' sweepy fawn.  aww.

This is a painting of a photographer.  He's part of a group I'm in and the photo version of this is his avatar.  Every time I saw it, I kept thinking it would look cool in paint so I asked and he approved of me painting it.

This was really one of the first times I've painting something where I felt like I created a piece of artwork.  It's not as popular of a piece as others are (because they are "cute"), but that doesn't really matter to me.  Art is subjective.

I'm going to have opportunity next week to paint a little more than usual so I'm excited about that, but in the meantime, back to editing photos.

*cracking whip sound*