The second wedding venue portrait finished

Inked

The second wedding venue portrait is finished and they both have reached their destination.  I really enjoyed doing this one.  It is stark in its own way, as a simple brick-faced building, but its details are quite charming.  Wooden shutters block the lower windows, but the fanned, vertical brick archtop above them and the iron gated doorway add much needed visual interest.  The eye is drawn up to the second story windows with their overflowing flower boxes and striped awnings.  The trees soften the harder angles and add texture.

New commission

Penciled up

Inked in

I was just fussing around in the studio last month, trying to decide on some new marketing strategies for my artwork, when I got a new portrait commission.  It is a simple brick, end apartment/condo in Philadelphia that someone must have wonderful memories of.

At only 8×10, it didn’t take long to pencil up and ink in.  One detail that may not show up too clearly is that there is a big concrete frog in front of the flower pot.  It’s kind of hard to see it in the pictures, but it does liven up what is mostly a lava rock landscape with just a little flower bed next to the left shrub and railing.

April showers in March

At last we are getting rain instead of snow. A gray day today, but that is fine with me.  The temperatures were in the 60’s yesterday so spring is on the horizon.

A grand house

I have been looking at working with this set of photos for a quite a while, but have been slightly intimidated by the deck behind the crenelations.  I need to define its presence to separate the fore structure from the large window and the perspective works against it. I decided to just dive in and let the shading handle it.

The soft brownish brick has accents of limestone surrounding the windows and door.  The whole left gable has zig-zaggy brick for added visual interest.  The bay window is a weathered copper and the roof, as would be expected in a home this elegant, is slate.  The pencil up is mostly finished and I will start the inking today.  Sorry about the paleness of the photo, but the pencil never shows well on the very white board.

This one doesn’t feel quite like a true Tudor to me because the timber work  looks somewhat like an afterthought, but I rather like it anyway.