I looked at the calendar and decided to squeeze one more post into the year, something short and sweet. Like Coda (the resident puppy)!
So here’s a drawing of Coda (from a photograph) I gave my mother for Christmas. It was done in charcoal and colored pencil. I drew on the rough side of pastel paper to achieve the textured look. Click to enlarge.
Merry Christmas, and blessings for the new year.
On some previous projects, I’ve sporadically posted images of various stages of the process. For my latest commission, a sailboat painting, I decided to take photos after most painting sessions. Enjoy these snapshots. (The lighting changes, in turn changing the photo colors, but I assure you, it is the same artwork.)
The boat is named Tommy Dundee and is painted in oils on canvas.
Underpainting + sky base color
Basic cloud shapes + water base colors
More developed sky (clouds) and water
Boat base colors (local/actual color) and shapes
Boat details (placement) indicated (rigging, equipment, etc.)
Boat details developed and refined
Water details (colors, reflections, etc.) developed
Final touch-ups and completion!
Just for fun, I reread posts from August 2014 to see some of what artistic things I did a year ago. Some highlights: f
inishing the Alice Moran (tugboat) painting (framed & delivered Sept. 2014), planning Pandagrams, and starting an illustration commission for Do You Have a Pebble in Your Pocket?
If you’d like to revisit those posts, too, just type a keyword such as “panda” in the search bar (top left, just under the colorful Racing Pajamas header). The results page shows several posts & pages; scroll down & click “older posts” (at the bottom of the list) to see more results.
Having looked a year back, you might wonder what new things I’m doing now. First off, I’m painting a series of shells in watercolor, and I’ll likely print a couple of them as notecards. (Previews peppered about this post.) Second, I’m celebrating that we’ve gained a blog subscriber this week–hooray! Third, I’ve been recruited to do art for a board game–fun! More on that next time.
Two days ago, I ventured to draft of my Kawa Kon art adventure; after an hour, I realized just how much occurred. Sally forth for my truncation.
As an art vendor, I :
Behold the booth.
Before I sign off, there are two elements of my Kawa Kon experience you might be wondering about from last time.
1. Dodging giant gerbils. The dealers’ room/super-tent had large overhead air tubes along the ceiling. Sporadically, a burst of air would WSSSHOOM through the tube, flapping the vents as it went. Totally a giant gerbil running through the tunnel.
2. Surviving an air raid. The hotel was opposite the St. Louis airport. Sunday was busy & noisy.
In short, this experience was about testing the waters–managing a booth, spreading the word, and determining whether I’d like to do it again. I would.
Happy Pi Day of the Century! (3.14.15.) If I weren’t such a revisionist, I could’ve posted at 9:26:53.
At this time a week ago, I was sitting by the edge of a pond, scribbling my way through a squiggly pastel drawing of a house in the woods. The occasion? My first plein air art competition. (For readers who know the Principia school area, I was about half a mile down the road at Longview Farm Park.)
A few hours later, I started and completed a little painting of a birdhouse. Since I had less than an hour and a half to do it, I challenged myself to capture my painting style during high school. (Click to enlarge.) To compare it to something I did paint in high school, click here.
From the contest I learned and reconfirmed a few things (some of which apply to life at large, not just art):
Artwork from the competition is on display (and for sale) at Longview Farm House through Monday, November 17, including during the Holiday Boutique on the 15th. If you’re in the area and want to check out the gallery, the address is 13525 Clayton Rd., Town & Country, MO, 63141.