Fourth and final – finished

Watercolored

Hooray. Everything is done and delivered. I got word she has received it already and was pleased.  Maybe she will even have time to get it framed for Christmas.

I liked the combination of the gray bricks with the green shutters and shades.  The flag is a little plus for the colors, too.  I found the upper window arrangement quite interesting. The two narrow windows on either side of the doublehungs almost act like sidelites.  It makes me wonder what the interior looks like – not that I’m not often curious about the interiors of the homes I draw anyway.

Last one for the holiday season.

Pencil (plus a little ink)

Whew, I almost forgot to take the picture of the pencil up, but I remembered before I got too far along.  I’ve been working hard to get this one out in time for Christmas delivery and it almost slipped my mind to take a photo.

The initial sketch took some fiddling around.  I had to move the landscaping some to make the entryway more visible and cut the big tree on the right way back to show the house to its advantage.  I had to use some close up pictures almost taken from the side to make out what was initially hidden by the foliage, but fortunately, there was enough information to do it.

This one has an interesting pattern in its gray brick – some inserted soldier courses making rectangles in the mass of the wall.  I think they make a nice addition, but you’ll have to wait to see it.

Commission Number 3

Brown house

Somehow I forgot to take the pencil up and inked photos of this commission with all if the work piling up  after it, so right on to the colored version.  As the buyer said, it’s a brown house.  The green shutters add a spot of color as do the flowers.  I had to rearrange the landscaping a bit to not hide the window, but she had some pretty flowers round the front.

I’m mostly finished with the last commission.  I want to get it out soon so that it makes it for Christmas.

Painted and off to its new home

Painted strip mall drug store

I took about 3 days to finish watercoloring this portrait. I didn’t want to overdo the initial washes and took my time.  I had the hardest time putting on the upper light green under the signs  and keeping it somewhat even.  It is a large expanse and more difficult because of just the one color.  And so much lettering.  Not something I do often, but it is fun to have such a different project.

On to the next.  Or the first of two, to be more exact!

Inked strip mall

Realo Strip Mall Store

I forgot to take a picture right after I finished the inking before I started the watercolors so you get a little preview of what is to come. As strip malls go, this one is pretty nice looking.  The architect went to the trouble of banding the multi-red colored brick columns and walls with a grayish white brick and used complementary greens, with a narrow strip of yellow/beige accent for the rest.  I think it is a pretty attractive color combination and the fact that my house has almost those colors has nothing to do with it.  LOL

On to the next one

Strip mall drug store

This is a rather large portrait. It being a strip mall store, I had to widen the perspective and lower the sky volume from the 14×9 size to about 15.5×8.  I also extended the bottom grassy area to help ground it.  This preliminary layout was done while I waiting on an answer to questions on the previous one, so I got a leg up during a busy time.

It is kind of apropos of the season.  The colors are red brick, forest green metal roof, and lime green across the top name panel.  It has interesting bands of white brick across the front, too, which livens up a commercial building.  I like it too because those are almost the colors of my house.  I just have a creamy yellow trim instead of white.