A New Project

I will admit, I have been slacking on posting new items in my etsy shop. I am going to start a new project of painting on these outdoor furniture samples that my husband had left over from his outdoor design business. I'm sure there are many fun, crafty things one could do with these little samples, but all I see are mini paintings! I normally don't paint so small so it will be a new kind of challenge. I would like to add some more affordable art to my etsy shop too and this is the perfect way! What would you do with these samples? I'm curious what genius ideas are out there! They are pretty just as they are, but the artist in me must alter them!!

Charcoal Sketches

I recently did these for my friend, Stacy. (Check out her fun blog sometime!) She gave them to her sister who has three beautiful girls! Kids grow so fast and this is a nice way to preserve a special time in life!

Chihuahua Portrait

Chihuahua

12 x 12

oil on canvas

Sold

This was one of my commissioned paintings for Christmas. I really love painting animals. It is fun to try and capture their personality and expression in a painting. I hope to do many more! Thanks to Long Dog, Fat Cat for hanging my art and making this commission possible! They have really great, healthy pet food and cute toys and accessories too! Check it out if you are in the Omaha area! (In the strip mall just south of Village Pointe).

Back to Work

Zorinsky Lake

18 x 18

oil on canvas

Available for purchase at my etsy shop!

I had a wonderful Christmas full of snow and family and friends! I was able to complete my commissioned paintings with enough time to finish Christmas shopping and even do a little baking! I actually loved the Christmas snowstorm because it slowed us down a bit. It was so nice to be snowed in for Christmas eve and literally trudge through the snow to get to our parent's houses! The snow days throughout December also helped keep me home painting which was nice. Today it is still snowing so here is a water painting to remind us of warmer days! I love the snow, but I don't think I've ever painted it... I may have to do that one of these days! I'm hoping to finally get back into a routine of painting and blogging and posting on Etsy. I have a few commissions to work on, as well as the annual Art & Soup in February. I have lots of ideas! Thanks for checking out my blog! Stay warm out there!

How to plan a portrait (Part 3)

Voila! Here is the finished portrait. I kept it simple by unifying their clothing and giving it a solid background. I think that helps the focus to be on their faces. By doing a lot of the measuring ahead of time, I was able to focus on color mixing and value tones rather than painting over mistakes (I've learned my lesson over the years). So, I will be shipping it off on Monday.. a painting would be such a nice surprise for Christmas :)

How to plan a portrait (Part 2)

OK please don't judge me. This is not pretty, but it is the next step in my painting process. This is the underpainting. I like to do this for a couple reasons. It helps me to catch mistakes before I spend time mixing colors. If you look at the girl on the right, you can see that her body is much too small for her head. I may not have caught this as quickly if I hadn't done the underpainting. Also, it helps me to lay in some value structure (hence, the splotchy faces). It may not be pretty, but once I start putting color on top it gets better! Lastly, I really like layering lighter colors on top of darks because it gives the painting depth and interest.

One thing to remember when doing an underpainting... keep it thin. You want it to dry before you start painting color on top. (Also follows the "fat over thin" rule in order to prevent cracking). Stay tuned to see the final painting!

How to plan a portrait

It can be tricky to do a portrait of six kids but planning well in the beginning makes it a lot easier. Believe me, I am not the best planner but I put my non-meticulous ways to work to ensure fewer setbacks later on. I always start with a sketch. It may not look like much but it helps me familiarize myself with the faces and the composition. The pictures I was given to work with for this portrait were fairly small so I blew them up as much as I could without getting blurry. I had to work between two separate photos to get the best view of each child so drawing out the composition in a sketchbook helps to sort it out. I often make notes in the sketchbook to remind myself of ideas and colors.

Once I am ready to tackle the canvas I start laying out the composition in pencil. I don't normally do this because I usually enjoy just moving paint around and not tainting my canvas with pencil, although when I'm painting six portraits on one canvas I have to measure and re-measure and that is a little easier in pencil. I make sure to measure every head, set of eyes, forehead to chin, ear to ear.... you get the idea. This is not a mathematical method nor is it graphed out. I use my pencil or paintbrush to measure. It's more like eyeballing until you get it right. I like this method because I am still using my eyes rather than relying on a graph. I think it just works best for my brain. After this step is done it's time to start painting! My next post will be about the underpainting.