Mr. Turtle visits

I was down in my studio on Saturday. I happened to glance out my patio doors and whom did I see but Mr. Turtle walking across the concrete. He surprised me by stretching out his neck and appearing to try and drink some of the pooled water from a brief downpour. It was interesting to see. I have never thought about how a turtle might drink. Have you?

A drinking turtle

Boise Portrait

Downtown Boise

I think this might be about done. It is so hard to tell with a more abstract painting. I keep wanting to adding more ink and detail, but the request was for a more abstract view. It is time to step away. LOL

Pastel Finish

All done with this one. I am glad that the trees were purplish to add some color. There wasn’t much in the way of flowers or contrast on the home exterior to break up all of the gray and white, so having the extra tree color was a great thing. I ended up using some brown to tone down the pinks and purples and that seemed to work out well.

The second commission of the year

Inked in

Penciled up

I have to take a brief break from finishing the Boise painting because I just got another home commission. And after the complexity of the last one, this commission seems a lot easier. Even with all of the hip roof lines, dormers, and stone, the layout and inking didn’t take very long. It is a good thing the front ornamental trees are purplish, though. The house is white stone and with gray and white siding above. It would have been pretty dichromatic with just the green and white.

An Abstract Cityscape

Downtown Boise inked up

Pencil drawing of Boise

My son wants an abstractish painting of downtime Boise from a distance. I located some of the pictures I took at the Boise Train Depot in 2018 showing the downtown vista from there and came up with this as a start. Probably not much more ink detail, just swaths of color. Wish me luck.

A pretty big and complicated commission

Courtyard expanse

10 days of inking

Original pencil up

Well, I have been fairly quiet on the posting front due to this large and complicated commission. It’s not only 20X14 but probably the most difficult thing I have ever done. It also took the most time I have ever put into a commission – 3 weeks in total. I worked on the pencil drawing over 4 days, the inking for ten and the coloring for five. Not much idle time. I tended work in two sessions a day to keep my mind fresh. It was too easy to get mesmerized and lose track of exactly what I was doing and make mistakes, especially during the inking. Still it was fun to do and I am proud of the outcome.

Another two dog portraits redone

Trip the French bulldog

Nash the French bulldog

Two more finished – this time French bulldogs. I am going to have to look around my photos to see if I have more for different dog breeds. I am looking forward to adding these breeds to my Society6 shop this spring after I get them photographed in hi-res.

Redoing some of the pet portraits

Dachshund

Japanese Chin

Corgi

Since I have been selling some of my dog portraits on merchandise on my Society6 site, I decide to redo a few of the ones I did for family members a few years ago. I had done them as samples for my pet portrait offering on my etsy site and had given the work to the respective owners at the time so I no longer have access to them for the high resolution photos I need. It’s been rather fun doing these with no strict requirements, just for fun. More to come.

Finished #4 Christmas commission

Well, it’s done and with the client in time for Christmas. Thank you USPS. I like the interplay of the brick, the stone, and stucco with all of the curves in the facade and on the roof. That is one complicated chimney too, with the double flues and stepped rise. The flowered shrubs add a bit of color accent which is always good. It is certainly one of the more interesting portraits I have done in a while.

Number four for the holidays.

Inked

Pencil drawing

This is definitely the biggest and most complicated of the four Christmas commissions. What number three lacked in complexity, this made up for in spades.It has brickwork, stonework, a large chimney, and multiple gables and roof lines. It took an extra day to draw up and two more days to ink. At least it is a 14X9 instead of 10X8. So much detail here.

I did like the “wave” in the limestone blocks transition to brick and the random placement of white limestone into the bricks. It will be easier to see in the color version (pastel again).