Another Portrait Finished

"Maggie in the Leaves"

2009
8"x10"
Colored Pencil on White Stonehenge Paper

Got one more portrait done! I'm working as fast as I can before our second child arrives in August. This portrait will be at the Center for Visual Arts in Wausau, Wisconsin for a July show. I need to frame it up and get it ready!

Still haven't heard if I will for sure be teaching an acrylic class this coming fall. This would be a great opportunity for me as I really do love to teach. I'm intentionally doing more acrylic paintings just to be able to describe my process. It's one thing to just do it, another to teach about it.

I am excited about the prospect of taking a life drawing course in the next few weeks. It's a rare opportunity to have an open lab without the commitment of a formal class and that it's right here in town. The only possible problem is that there won't be enough people signing up to take the class and they might not offer it if it's not full.

"Thresher" 12x12

I just finished a 12x12" painting recently of a thresher from the family farm. It was one of those projects that took way too long, but was a lot of fun to do. I ended up putting Maggie in daycare so I could work on it during the day. She sure likes going there and I sure like to get stuff done, so we'll do this as long as I can afford to do it.

I figured I better get back into acrylics if I teach a class this fall! That was part of my major in college and I did a lot of acrylics in high school, so I'm familiar with it. Things sure have changed though on the kinds of acrylics that are out there. I'm really enjoying the OPEN line from Golden. I hate how long oils take to dry, but acrylics are also a problem even with retarders added. They dry way too fast. The new kind of acrylics are so much easier to work with, staying open to drying time a lot longer, but will not stay open so long as to require months of drying time.

In this case, I opted for the regular old acrylics just to get a feel for it, but I would like to keep working with the OPEN line and I got a bunch of the Atelier line to try out.

Finished Jax & Oscar

After a rocky start, I finally got the portrait of Jax and Oscar completed. It's an 11x14 on Stonehenge cream colored paper.

The best part of doing portraits is always the delivery of the artwork. They were very happy and started to cry, especially when they saw the black dog. He died unexpectedly and this was a tribute to him.

Next project: Ford F150 part II

This could be considered a series as it's the exact same image of a Ford Truck that I had just done, except the background will change. It's family who had just sold the truck which had belonged to their father. This is a great way to keep the truck and make it part of their family history. I'm hoping to get started with it this week. I'm getting really busy now and hate to stop.

We'll be having our second child in August, I expect my last days working will be in June sometime as I will probably have carpal tunnel terribly bad again, just like last time. After that though, I'll be back at it. So, right now I'm frantically trying to get as much done as possible!

Commission: Oscar & Jax

Right now I have another commission to do portraits of a pair of dogs.

The one in the foreground had just unexpectedly passed away. The one in the background is still around.

The client really wants the foreground dog to stand out, which should be easy since he's a black dog.

I have to watch the background however. I'll be putting grass around the dogs, so I also don't want it to get overwhelmed by that. I'll post pics as I go along.




Finished the Truck!

This is the second to last of the proofs, I had to finish the bottom part a little more and sign the thing. I got it done a couple of days ago. I sure learned a lot from this one! I'm still not too familiar with pastels and what the best method is to work in them.

One thing I learned is I should do the background first! I don't like to do the background first when I do colored pencil, it gets too hard to keep the subject clean for me at least. In this case, it was a real problem adding things around the vehicle after I already had it finished. I think I did alright, but it could have gone smoother.

The other is don't use my finger for blending. I need to make sure that if I do, I have a good callous built up because I pretty much scraped the skin off my finger on the sanded paper. It would have been a bloody mess if I didn't watch what I was doing. It really hurt too.

I haven't found a tool that can blend quite as well as my finger. The things out there lift off the pastel and don't force it into the grain of the paper. Working so small also requires a delicate touch so I can't always blend just using the pastels themselves.

I'm not sure if I like the Wallis sanded paper. It seems to have too much tooth for the above reasons. I did like Pastelbord by Ampersand. It's just enough tooth, but not too much. Problem with that is it's a major pain to frame. I'll have to show a demo on how I framed something else when I used the Pastelbord.

I'm so not a writer!

I still have to get used to blogging! I don't write a whole lot as far as journaling goes, especially with an 18 month old who wants 100% attention. Anyway, I have been pretty busy drawing/painting lately.

CVA Midwest Winter Show
The show officially opened last Friday and had a great turnout. I was there for most of the time, lots of food! :) The quality of the pieces was very good this year. I haven't seen the previous years work, but sometimes I am disappointed in what is in the gallery. There were pieces from 11 states, coast-to-coast. I'm hoping my little piece would get someones attention and it has. I have two commissions resulting from that. Not a lot of money, but it's something! I figure it's worth it to do to make up for all the art supplies I have bought over the last two years. Now I can really use them up!

I also got to talk to the director and I'm hoping to be able to teach a class this summer. I really miss teaching and I think this would be a great outlet for me. I have to find out when it will be, I'm due in August -- I should still be able to teach, as long as I don't have the babes on the day of the class!



Truck #2
Here's what I have been working on for a couple of weeks now. It's not that it has taken that long, it's just that I'm beat at the end of the day lately. I'm hoping my energy level increases as I approach the second trimester.

This is the first commission I have had for a while. It's on Wallis sanded paper, pastel pencils mainly and some soft pastel, 10"x8". It was two photos combined, I had to include the gas station in the background somehow and make it a different kind (Texaco). Not sure if it's the way I want it to look yet. I need some distance to get a good judgement.

The big issue I have is as always, the background. I'm not sure if adding trees will be convincing enough. Not much to go on in the photo, but that's where I have to work my magic!

Something is finally happening...

ACEO's

This week has been a very good week for me! I'm very happy to report that all four ACEO's sold.

I was initially asking $9.99 for each, then changed my mind and lowered it to $7.99. I ended up getting for all four $45.00. One sold for $18.25, pretty good for a newbie!

All of them were Madonna and Child images which I thought might sell for Christmas. All are done in Colored Pencil (Prismacolor, not my favorite) on 2-ply Plate finish Bristol Board.

They were a labor of love and pain. These caused me major amounts of pain in my neck which I'm still recovering from. The pins & needles feeling in my face is driving me crazy. I did love to do them and will probably do some more and sell them for next year.

Now I just have to come up with my own stuff. That's the hard part!

I think I'm more of an illustrator than fine artist as I do like to have a purpose for the artwork, not just a means to express myself. It's the action of doing the art I love, subject matter doesn't usually do anything for me. That's why I think I get artist's block a lot.

The juried show entry that got in

Juried Show

2nd great thing is that I got into the Center for Visual Arts juried show coming up in January. It's called "Midwest Seasons" and was marketed toward National/International artists. I think it's mainly for the Wausau, Wis area however. We'll see what all ends up being at the show.

I'm really happy I got in, but not as happy as I would be if it were the one I wanted to get in. Actually, it is the one I thought would get in, but I was working on the Daffodil picture and another one for so long, I was hoping one of those would have gotten in. Objectively, the one that was chosen is the strongest!

Getting up the nerve

I finally got up the nerve and posted some Art cards on EBay the other night. I'm patiently, impatiently waiting to see if someone bids on at least one of them. They are all of Madonna and Child images which I hope will spark someone to buy for Christmas presents.

They were more of a last minute deal to see if the format, which is very small would be of interest to me (they are always 2.5" x 3.5"). I did find it a challenge but it wasn't too bad. All of them are reproductions of mostly Raphael images, so it was also an exercise in drawing.

I think I'd do it on different paper using different pencils.

I'm really not a fan of the Prismacolors. I feel like the only one out there that doesn't just love them! Reasons why I don't like them... too waxy, they seem to crumble too much, especially when I was using the bristol board. layering also seems to be harder to do for that reason. They don't have the dry feel like the oil based ones (which escape me right now, and I'm too lazy to get up to see what the name is right now!) I think that's what I hate the most.

I did make a significant investment in Prismacolors before finding the other ones which shall remain nameless right now. I regret doing that now. I'll use them up eventually. Good thing they never go bad. I have pencils from college I'm still using, and that's been nearly 20 years now.