Runner Drawing

Running on the trails

Most of you that follow my blog know that I rarely do figurative work. I have been asked to create an image of a runner and I am going to do my best to try. Since I haven’t done much like that, I know I’m going to need to practice up.  I took some of my photos and made these two as a first stab at it.  These aren’t too bad for a first stab at it, but I think I’ll have to keep at it, so over the next few months I will be occasionally posting my efforts.  Hopefully after a dozen tries, I’ll get this where I want it.

I have my next architectural in mind already.  Back to Jasper for one more streetscape.

Playing hooky

New aceos

I must admit to playing hooky over the last week.  The weather has been warming up and while I had to dodge some rain, I was able to do my “fall cleanup” for a few days.  The flower beds are ready for spring weeding and as soon as it dries up some, I’ll be out there pulling grass, dandelions, and other assorted weeds that have already sprung up.  The redbuds are fully blooming and the dogwoods are coming on.  My red dogwood survived the winter cold and the deer with most of the flowers intact. so I am happy about that.  The daffodils are almost done though.  I have been picking them to put in the kitchen, but they haven’t lasted over long.  It is still early to buy any flowers for planting, but I’m getting the urge to.  We are having a high deer fence put around our garden this spring because we are tired of the deer, raccoons, rabbits, possums, etc. eating up everything including the fruit trees.  I might as well just been giving the wildlife the money the last few years.  LOL

I did spend some time making some new aceo/gift tags.  I have my next project in mind, but I have to do some photo research before I can start.  Here’s a peek at the aceos.  I’ll be listing some of them in the next few days.

Florida Watercolor

Florida watercolor

The Florida house has a much different feel than the Ohio house, both because of the different materials used and the subject matter. It too has an abundance of greenery, but this one has a lighter, sunnier feel to it. Palm trees always make a picture feel more exotic, don’t you think?  It didn’t have as many flowers as I might have expected, but the ones that were there helped moderate the green vegetation. It was all reds instead of yellows this time.  It seems to me I have seen a higher proportion of red, pink, and white pink flowers in southern yards.  We seem to have more yellows and blues along with the reds up here.  Maybe it is just the time of year though.

Large parts of the house were hidden by the lush landscaping and I had to pare back the shrubs somewhat – just not enough to change the overall impression. The area under the covered entryway was much darker because of the bright sunlight, so I lightened it up, as if the sky were more cloudy.  Otherwise, all anyone would see was that big two car garage.  I doubt that is what the buyer had in mind.  I think it all was pretty successful,

Next up will be a few new aceo/gift tags.  I have sold quite a few in the last month and need to replace them in my etsy shop.  Fortunately, I have plenty of blanks made up so it won’t take long.

Back to Ohio

Ohio house

I finished both of the commissions yesterday and am prepping them to go out tomorrow. It was interesting to work on two different styles at the same time – a watercolor and a pastel.  Still, each one seemed to fit the medium used.  The Ohio house has the deeper, woodsy tones of the pastels and the Florida house has sun washed watercolors.

I decided to show the pastel first since I started it earlier. Because there was so much greenery and the house siding was pale, I had to work hard to get the proper depth of color. Thank heavens there are day lilies in the fore ground along with a small reddish shrub.  It really needed the pop of color.  I did use a little bit of purple in the shadows, too.

As a Victorian, the house was interesting in and of itself.  Besides the normal bric-a-brac, the large front porch area has been screened in.  I suppose this makes the porches more usable on buggy summer nights.  You can barely see some outdoor furniture behind the screening.

Next up will be the Florida watercolor.