The three amigos

The three amigos

The three calves painting is now finished and I am fairly happy. I think the one thing I might change is to have made the whole thing somewhat larger. In hindsight, trying to cram all of these guys into a 6×7 frame made it more difficult than perhaps was necessary.  I had a harder time inking with the thicker nib pen and there wasn’t as much room to layer the defining colors.  Lesson learned. Give each animal room enough for its own space.

Three calf pencil up

Three calves

Last fall I started to pencil up this sketch of three calves that lived across our road.  They made a nice composition and fortunately are three different colors.

Holiday commissions and then a surprising six orders first of the year pushed this little drawing to the back of the line. Then I took a pen and ink break to do the fruit paintings because I needed to do something different for a bit.

Fruit Paintings: Part 3

Pear

And lastly a tomato and a pear.  I think I like these two the best out of the six.  I am varnishing them right now and should have all of these 8×10’s listed in my shop sometime this week.  It has been a fun break from the precision of all of that ink work.

After that, I think I’ll go back to a little drawing of three calves that I started way back last fall before the Christmas rush started.

Tomato

Fruit Paintings Part 2

Strawberries

Next up was strawberries and an apple.  These are all 8×10’s.  I like the smaller size as it is not too intimidating for me at this point.  I really need to take an acrylic class again, just to get some tips on manipulating the paint.  I have problems dealing with the thickness of the paint and using the drying speed retardant.

In any case, I was pretty happy with the way these turned out. Once again I raided my refrigerator for inspiration and came up with these.  And the nice thing is, when I’m done, I can eat the scenery props.  Which I did.  LOL

Granny Smith apple

A nice surprise in the mail

The Journal Cover

I had a nice surprise come in the mail last week.  Remember when I had the architectural drawing selected to appear on the Education journal?  Well, my copies arrived.  I thought it should be about now because it was for the spring edition and I had just emailed my contact the day before if she knew a particular date.  Voila,  it was in the mail box.

Jessica Millete handled the process for me and did a nice job.  I sent huge raw photo files that I could’t even see with my computer to her at the media company involved.  I had never worked with something for publication and hadn’t the slightest idea of what was needed.  There was a short timeline and not enough time for me to figure it all out.  But she fixed up the four different architectural drawings I sent and submitted them.  Extra work for her, but a definite bonus for me.  This is the one that was selected.  The picture selected was nicely cropped and I think shows well.  Thank you Jessica and Sara Shahabi.

Fruit paintings

Avocado

After two months of line work, I felt I needed to do something very different for a little while.  Since I plan to do about a half a dozen of these, I felt that posting most of the preliminary work would be a bit tedious, so I will stick with a close to finished photo.

I went to the refrigerator and took a look at what was in there.  First up turns out to be an avocado and oranges.  I wanted to do something more free form and these are part of the results  after 3-4 painting sessions each.  I think I will look at them all again when the the whole batch is essentially done to make final adjustments before I list them in my etsy store.  As it turns out I will have two reds, two greens, and two orangish one.  It should make a nice variety of color for kitchen art.  Maybe I should add in something blue, too.  Blue berries?  I’ll have to buy some which will make John happy.

Oranges

The last one done

watercolored

The triplex finished and off to its new home.  Since this was pretty monochromatic, I added color in the landscaping with the flowers, echoing the yellow doors.  I added some reds and mauves in the shrubs and trees as well as the shadows.  For a simple structure, it came put pretty well.

I think I am going to use my acrylics next and paint some small fruit pieces.  After seven weeks of architectural commission work, I need a change of pace.  I’ll put them into my etsy store when I’m finished.  I haven’t added anything new since well before Christmas due to the portrait work (not that I am complaining) and I need to.