A New Web Friend From Brambleberry Cottage

Only this one I met in person first!  I was shopping with a couple of friends last weekend and found the perfect stroller for our little rescued Maltese in a thrift shop in a neighboring town.  I'd just paid for the stroller when another lady came up with a cute little Yorkie to inquire about the same stroller.  I found out later that her name was Liz and that she has a gorgeous blog here on Blogger.

We exchanged pleasantries and I gave her one of my business cards with the painting of CiCi on it (you know I can never resist showing off my baby!)  Today she left a comment on my blog here as well as emailed me. 

To make a long story shorter, I've spent the morning looking at her beautiful blog and came across a post of hers on "Morning Glories" http://thebrambleberrycottage.blogspot.com/2011/08/glories-of-morning.html.  The photos are spectacular but I think she may have some bindweed there instead of true morning glories (sorry, Liz!)

I've long been enamored of the bindweed that runs rampant on our farm and even painted some a few years ago.  I entitled the painting "Glorious Strangler" because that's what bindweed does to any plant around it.  Not only does it strangle out plants but it also puts out some sort of substance from its roots that helps prevent other plants from growing around it.  Not a plant that plays well with others but very, very beautiful nonetheless.

Please go take a look at the way Liz has arranged and photographed these flowers and you'll probably agree with me that their beauty far outweighs their nasty nature!  Thanks so much for the photographic eye-candy, Liz!

Thank You, Christine!

The internet is a wonderful place for meeting some terrific people.  One of those people is Christine from Fine Arts Graphite Portraits blog.

I was stunned yesterday when our mail carrier brought a package containing a portrait of my dear horse, Bonnie, who we lost about a year and a half ago.  Christine knew how much I loved Bonnie and how difficult it is for me to paint my own pets and sent me a graphite portrait of Bonnie just out of the blue! 

It's a gorgeous portrait that looks just like her and I cried when I saw it.

Christine, I know how busy you are with your new little boy and for you to take the time to draw my Bonnie means so much to me.  You did a wonderful job and I there just aren't enough words to thank you for your kindness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Artistic Dead Space

"WaterLily"

Gouache on an absorbent ground

prepared hardboard

Contrary to what you might have believed, I'm not dead but just having a little artistic dead space.  I really have been working but I've kept hitting slick spots on the artistic road of a double portrait and decided to pull over to rechart my course.

All that means is that when you keep making mistakes with a project, sometimes it's just best to switch to another project to try to get your mojo back.  lol

Sometime ago I bought some of the Golden Absorbent Ground but hadn't had time to try it.  I had several odd pieces left from the hardboard I bought ages ago and decided to prepare one to try out the new ground.  The above painting of the waterlily is the result.

It's only 4 x 6 inches so didn't take a very long time to paint but I'm not sure if I found any difference between the absorbent ground and a plain gessoed board.  I won't give a review of the ground until I've had more time to use it.  I will say the next time I think I'd use a roller to apply it to try to get a more even surface and maybe to get a slightly dimpled surface similar to cold pressed watercolor paper.

I'd also wanted to take this opportunity to use gouache as it's usually intended which is usually more like oil or acrylic than watercolor.  But, gouache is kind of tricky - at least in my experience.  It seemed that I was either mixing it too thin or too thick so I ended up using it much the same way I use watercolor but applying my lighter colors last as in oil or acrylic painting.  

I guess that ends up being the best of all the media and I was pretty pleased with the outcome.  Now back to the portrait of the two beautiful Golden Retrievers which I hope to finish soon!

Shawnee - Final (or close to it)

Shawnee - Acrylic On Ampersand Board

 

 

 I've finally gotten into the short rows with this portrait of Shawnee and I've just emailed the client for approval.  It's taken what seems to be forever but between the flu and the Thanksgiving holiday, I guess it really hasn't been that long.  

A fellow artist asked me about the technique I used to get the fur texture so I thought I'd share it with you all too.  I used a small #2 round for most of the fur work and just worked back and forth in layers using three or four colors of paint.  Shawnee had a buff colored undercoat which did peek through her outer fur at times so I used the buff color as the base layer.  Then I used a mixed black (Ivory black and Indigo blue) to avoid that "flat black" look, a white with varying tones of blue or white with a bit of the buff mixed it to help convey the reflected light.  The working in all these colors with such a small brush is why it took so long to finish as there must be hundreds and hundreds (or maybe thousands) of brush strokes in this painting.

I have a set of "fur" brushes but in this instance they left a very regular brush pattern that just didn't look like fur at all.  Many times, these are my favorite brushes for fur as it goes relatively quickly with them but they just didn't work as I wanted this time.  In case you're wondering what brushes I usually prefer for fur, they're the Simply Simmons Comb brushes.  You can see how they cut the bristles into irregular lengths which gives the look of fur most of the time at this website:  http://www.fineartstore.com/Catalog/tabid/365/List/1/CategoryID/11456/Level/a/Default.aspx?SortField=unitcost%2Cunitcost

Anyway, I hope my client likes the portrait and that it's a comfort to her. 

Another Shawnee Update

I haven't posted an update on Shawnee's portrait and thought I'd better even though it's in the "ugly" stage.  I always feel that people look at it and wonder how any kind of finished portrait could come from that!  But, for better or worse, here's an update.

I'm pretty much finished with the buff colored undercoat and have started working on the silver-tipped black top coat.

There's really not much to say about it at this point!

Oh, sorry for the bad photo - for some reason I just couldn't get a good one!

A Very Odd Thanksgiving!

This past week - a week containing our American Thanksgiving holiday - has been a wild one and one very different from past Thanksgivings!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it seems to be the one most unaffected by blatant commercialism.  (I won't even comment on starting "Black Friday" on Thanksgiving Day this year!)  This year the kids (we have a son and a daughter) had other plans and I didn't have to cook a conventional Thanksgiving dinner.

This ended up being a good thing because the Saturday evening/night before Thanksgiving I kept violently up-chucking and ended up in the ER at our local hospital for several hours on Sunday morning.  It was some sort of bug and some IV fluids and anti-nausea meds got me back on track.  But, it took several days to get to the point where I could do much more than sleep and cooking a big dinner would have been nearly impossible!

So, we decided to get together this past Saturday (the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day) for a "Build Your Own Pizza" party.  I made my "famous" homemade pizza dough & sauce, set out every topping that anyone even mentioned and let everyone make their own pizza.

The top photo is one of the pizzas and the bottom photo is of three of our four grandchildren - aren't they all beautiful?  Our oldest granddaughter is just as gorgeous and is married and now lives in Maine.  It would have been perfect if she'd been able to join us also.

We may have had a very unconventional holiday but it was a fun time and maybe something we'll do again in the future!

We're so very thankful for our wonderful family and I'm very thankful to those of you who visit my blog and have become my online family!

Shawnee Update - German Shepherd Dog Acrylic Portrait

This is the latest update on the portrait of Shawnee, the German Shepherd Dog.  I'm still blocking in color and it seems to be going slowly because I'm trying to build layers.  With pastel, you can immediately go over the top of previously put down color, but with acrylic, you must wait for it to dry.  It doesn't take long but is just different from the way I usually work.

Shawnee had a lovely buff colored undercoat that I really want to get down right as bits of it will show through the succeeding layers when I begin to build the silver and black colors of her top coat. 

Soon I'll begin to texturize her coat so that all the subtle colors will work together to make her fur seem touchable and real.

A long way to go still but it's getting there!