Some old works

Photographed horribly with my iPhone.  Apologies, will get better images of these at some point.

Most of these were done in my teen years.  The English countryside landscape was earlier in childhood, the wedding portrait and Huajatollas were in my early/mid twenties.


My parents's wedding day, Acrylic paint


Huajatollas, Oil paint


I believe this was my first or second oil painting.  Done per instructions in a magazine.


My father as a boy, graphite/pencil


Self portrait, watercolors & pen


Three Pelicans, a photograph from my Aunt's back yard in Florida.

Patrick's piece, sketch 2

Oh my gosh! My first ever use of charcoal! I have fallen in love with a new medium! I can't wait to try it again!!!

Jacira finished!

Hubby kept complaining that my drawing made her look heavy so there was some tweakage this morning. You know you're done tweaking when you made one tiny tweak too many.
Went to scan this but then realized the size if the paper is too large
for the scanner! Ugh! I think I will have to get it professionally
scanned. Drag!

Jacira - Work in Progress

Been working on this portrait again today. Much better this time. Had some problems though. Was working on it outside, and my muddy dog actually STOOD ON IT!!! I shrieked! I tried to rub off the mud, even began damaging the paper, but no, couldn't get the mud off. So I began again. But nothing I drew could approach this one. So I went back to it and decided that most of the damage would be covered by Jacira's jet-black hair so I would let it go. Still, there is some raw/rough paper where I rubbed too hard, and the texture of my color changes there. Bummer.


My 'real' camera is in repair and the iphone never keeps the proportions right. This does actually look better in person. There is still some tweaking to do for sure though. And obviously I have to finish the rest of the piece. But I am mostly happy with it. Obviously it's not her face precisely, but if I don't show my hand and my interpretation than what's the point of doing the drawing? If you want true photo-realism without flaws, hang up the photo. 




[EDIT - 5:40pm]
Finished?

Still needs some tweaks. I think I will sleep on this and see how it hits me in the morning. Not set on the background either.

Sketch for 2nd giveaway winner

I started off thinking this might be a finished portrait but I'm
definitely calling this a sketch. It's a start but Jacira is much
prettier than this. Some proportions are off and I think the messy
colored pencil look doesn't work for a portrait. Or at least not like
this. Back to the drawing board!

Knitting and stuff

I haven't had focused time that I could devote to working on those portraits since I got the first one finished.  But I hope to resume work on those within a week.  In the meantime, I've been knitting a fair bit.  And for the first time I made my own pattern and am using it to make myself a little cashmere/silk top with this yarn:



Yummy stuff.  I can't wait to see if the top is actually wearable!  I will post my pathetic little pattern sketch up here for all to see at some point.

I also made a few knitted soap covers:

...out of this yarn:


And the first half of a sweater, knit out of bamboo:

Oh my gosh, bamboo is a dream to knit with (if you can get past the nightmare of the balls of yarn which tangle badly if a lot of care isn't taken.)

I've been drawing a lot of airplanes for my son's birthday party (tomorrow):


(scribbles added by said son)


And today I made this little drawing for a birthday gift for another little two-year old friend:

I like the idea of children being given art for their birthdays so they have a collection when they become adults. I read about some parents doing that in a magazine once. So lately our little friends have been getting art from me.

Portrait #1 DONE!

Lorna and Morfar, Graphite on Paper, March 2009

C'est finis!  (Original here.)

I thought it was finished last night. Then, I got crazy this morning and started tweaking it, which is generally NOT a good idea (once you think you might be done). I usually go a few steps too far and regret it. Didn't do that, but I'm absolutely FIGHTING the urge to tweak further.

I'm sad to say I do have some problems with this drawing. It's about 15+ years since I have worked with pencil/graphite so I'm learning the medium over again (and learning the limitations of my eraser!)

Morfar's face is a bit overworked, and not right, and baby Lorna is not as solid looking as I'd like, but I'm afraid of ending up with her being overworked.

It's not too bad for my first portrait effort after a HUGE drawing break though.

Now on to portrait #2!  Wahoo!

Here are a couple of recent sketches.

The first one is for a bunny painting I did for a little friend on her first birthday.


The second one is the third version of some preliminary sketches I've done for the giveaway.


I think, after the third try (it was the charm I guess!) I am getting there with this latter drawing.

Will keep you guys updated with these pieces as I work on them!

Free Art!! (and other news)

Ok, so I'm feeling a resurgence of inspiration and urgency to restart my art. I think I'm going to start offering custom art pieces for sale here, and to get me going with that I've decided to offer five lucky people free portraits drawn from their photographs. So send in your photographs! It doesn't matter if I do or don't know you, if you're a stranger, commenter, lurker, family, friend, just send in your photo and I will choose five from the batch.  The deadline to get those photos in is Friday, March 13th.  This time Friday the 13th is a lucky day!

Notes about the photos you send:
Make sure you send something of reasonably good quality and clarity. My choices will be semi random, but will also be based on which of the photos I feel will be good candidates for drawing. Classic portraits are generally better if they have simple backgrounds and show mostly just the upper torso and face of the subject. Faces generally should be forward or on a 3/4 angle. Not that I won't accept photos that stray from this formula, but I am more likely to choose the classic shots.

Good luck!


Other news:
I now have a Flickr for all of my art work. So far it shows the exact same images that you can see here, but if you are more of a Flickr person, feel free to subscribe there instead. You will miss my discussion here, if I have any, or news bits like this, but you will have access to all of the images. I'm still deciding if I want to do something extra there that I don't do here. For now, one of the main benefits for checking out my Flickr is all of the sets I've created.

Let's say you're a really big fan of my drawings and paintings but are just not interested in my photography. Well, you can subscribe to just this set:

DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS


Let's say you are only interested in my night photography:

NIGHT/LOW LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY


You can check out all of my sets here and my photostream here.

Illo Friday - Emergency

Tada! My first Illo Friday in forever!

Emergency -- Pen & Ink Wash

When my baby cries this hard, it's an emergency, I can tell you. At least that's how he sees it!

I bought one of the famous moleskin journals recently. I wanted to make a fresh start and encourage myself to start drawing again. The quality of these journals is supposed to be just the tippy tops, so I finally plunked down the money for one, and I love it. It does ooze a little bit with quality. The warm tan tone of the paper will be something I need to get used to, it make it especially difficult to scan in accurate colors, but I do love it. I also decided to branch out just a tad with my usual style and use colored inks for my washes. Single colors, mind you. Not sure if I have it figured out yet, not to the degree that I had the B&W ones down. But it's not bad. Below is my first attempt, and above is my second.

Tree -- Pen & Ink Wash


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ACEO #32 - Fairy Boy

ACEO #32 -- "Fairy Boy - Purple" - Pen & Colored Pencil, July, 2007

Bid on this and other items on eBay.


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A Little Sunshine Must Fall...

Sun Rays -- Pen -- 2006

Just a little experiment with a different style.


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Illo Friday - Safe

Self Portrait, 8 weeks pregnant -- Pencil, Sept 1st, 2006.

Baby. Safe in Mamma's tummy. I suppose this is as good a time/place as any to let the world know. I'm pregnant!!! Hubby & I are terribly excited.

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this drawing. One of the dangers of using yourself as a model is that your drawing may end up looking even more like you than you thought it might. Of course, I intended it to be a drawing of me, pregnant at 8 weeks. But I guess I thought my rough sketch lines would stylize it a bit. My husband chuckled when he saw the drawing, he said it definitely looked like me, but said it seemed tasteful enough to post. My mom said it would have been fine if not for the fact that it has my face. I started getting nervous posting it myself. My friends, relatives, art customers/clients, and salsa students all come here from time to time, and now they get to see me naked. Well, it's not really me naked. I mean I did take some artistic licenses of course. I came up with several censored versions of the drawing, but found myself getting a terrible taste in my mouth and wanting to rebel against my own censorship. So here it is. Unaltered. Raw. This is me (sort of). With Baby safe in Mamma's tummy, but with Mamma feeling vulnerable and exposed.

How sad that we can't just appreciate the naked form. As soon as it has a face/identity, especially if it is recognizable, it almost becomes lewd at the moment of recognition. But I started thinking about it. This is the way this drawing had to be. It had to be recognizable as me. It's me pregnant. Baby is safe in my belly. Maybe I could have drawn it with clothes on, but I think that would have taken away from the purity of the connection between me and my unborn. Then you would have identified me by my clothes and categorized me as a certain type. But, here, I am me, just me. No cover, no guise, nothing but me and Baby.

This reminds me of an article I read yesterday. Totally different situation. But we Americans definitely have a problem with nudity, especially motherly nudity. Why? Who knows. But apparently there is a big uproar about the scandelous photo of a nursing baby on the cover of "Baby Talk" magazine. Ridiculous! It couldn't be less sexual or lewd, or more beautiful.


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Butterfly Tabby

Pen & Ink Wash


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Sneaky Mouse

Pen & Ink Wash


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Illo Friday - Spotted 2

Spotted Fishy -- Pen & Colored Pencil


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ACEOs #25 - 31

Did these over the past few days.

#25 #26
#27 #28
#29 #30
#31
ACEOs #25 - #31 -- Pen & Ink Wash
Click on any image to enlarge

Bid of these or other items on eBay.

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Illo Friday - Spotted

Pen & Ink Wash

The Spotted American Eagle (Spotticus Eaglus)
The lesser known Spotted American Eagle, (or Leopard Eagle) has adapted to go virtually unnoticed in the dappled light of the forests in northern Wisconsin. A rarity to see, it has recently been placed at the top of the endangered species list.


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ACEO #24 - Beach at Dusk

Pen & Ink Wash

Bid on this or other items.


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Illo Friday - Speed

Okay this is a stretch, but if I don't put something in, I am in danger of not getting a IF submission in this week.

Boat Race - Pen & Ink Wash

Every summer in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, they have row boat races as part of the Ólavsøka festival. They are great fun to watch and the locals get very excited about them. It's a big deal there. Of course, for the topic of speed, it would be nice to show them actually rowing their hearts out. This'll have to do. It is just moments after the race.


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