What I'm up to

Oops. I haven't updated in quite a few weeks. I could run on about my excuses, but I'd rather not. This is a landscape piece that I'm working on currently. I'm painting from a reference photo, but also a small color sketch. I had hoped to have been done with it this past Friday, but that didn't happen. The water is too bright right now, but I'm working on the problem. My next commission is a portrait.

Finished Leaf

This is the finished leaf. It was completed on wednesday. Now to get more ideas for my sketchbook project and start my other pieces.

Leaf commission

Apart from my sketchbook project I have two commissions I am currently working on. This is a leaf that will join four other leaves that I did the summer before my senior year. It is in oils on MDF board and quite small. I hope to get it done before the week is over. I have made my client wait long enough. My other commission is that of a landscape/seascape and I have yet to really figure out how best to tackle it. However, I hope to find the solution before the week is up and start painting it before the weekend. I will post all the leaves once they are all done.

Sketchbook Project

I recently decided to participate in the sketchbook project hosted and run by Art House Co-op. It costs $25 to participate, but I rather think it's well worth it. Each participant chooses a theme, mine is secret codes, then has until January to fill it up and send it back to Art House where it will join many other sketchbooks and go on a tour of the country before finally becoming part of the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library. It is a great challenge and the sketchbooks will be displayed in museums and galleries all over the country. I urge all and anyone to join in! The themes can be very loosely interpreted and it's a great way to open up ones imagination. This is only open until Oct. 31st so hurry and sign up!

I've only just recently started, but I'm hoping to fill it with as much of my imagination as possible. Hopefully I can break out of the box and tap into all those ideas that I know I have, but can't currently grasp. Wish me luck!

Simple sketches

These are very simple sketches for a piece that I owe my cousin from about a year and a half ago...heh. I'm always hesitant to use images from the internet so I've been contemplating buying some Calla Lilys and photographing them myself. I may just do that too, once I find some. I hope to be working on some commissions in the weeks to follow, though I've already started off cutting my board a quarter inch too short off one side and an inch and 3/8 off the other side. Ahhh the many steps to success starts with failures.

This drawing is only an inch and a half long. I used my blue drafting pencil with 2h lead. I do so love light lines. I drew these while watching cycle 13, the petite cycle, of America's Next Top Model. The shy, awkward girl that I saw with the most potential from the beginning won. Yay!

Clouds close up

This is the scanned painting of the clouds. I'll be putting my signature in the lower right corner tomorrow. Probably.

Clouds...

This is the actual oil painting of the photoshop sketch I did last week. It's 7.0625 x 7.5 on masonite and the whole time I was painting it, I was reminded why I like oil paints the most. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm getting there. Sometimes I like this piece and sometimes I don't. I initially painted this for a friend of mine as thanks for an ipod he's giving me, but I'm not sure I want him to have this if I'm not totally in love with it. The top three are actually the finished piece, but in different lighting. I need to learn how to photograph my work properly...hahahaha. Please feel free to tell me what you think.

A lily sketch that I drew with a 2h pencil and shaded with lightfast prisma colored pencils last night while watching 500 Days of Summer and the Pursuit of Happyness. This, of course, after I watched the documentary on 9/11. I didn't go to sleep until 4:30 a.m. During this week I hope to be working on a painting for a friend. I'll also be writing and sending out resumés and cover letters. Wish me luck.

Brendan James

This is a piece done in photoshop that I started last night while watching the Bourne Ultimatum. I didn't get very far. So last night I saw an ad on facebook recommending Brendan James's newest album to those who like Jon McLaughlin. After listening to the sample tracks on itunes, I bought the album. Brendan James has a beautiful voice and it was his voice that allowed me to concentrate on this piece enough to finish it. Music is so essential to my art. Trying to draw in total silence is absolutely horrible! I have been without my ipod since it was stolen in february and it's been pretty awful. I'm waiting for one that a friend is giving me, but it has yet to arrive and its been near 8 weeks. I'm dying a little inside. This piece is also a preliminary color sketch to a possible oil painting that I'll be doing for my friend Josh. I haven't decided if I like it enough to paint it. Any suggestions or comments are welcome.

One of many

School has started up again and I am sadly not a part of the chaos. This is a mixture of feelings. I have graduated less than four months and I'm in a bit of a raw panic as to what to do with my life. So to challenge myself, brought on by my little sister doubting I could do it, I will make a drawing or painting by the end of each week and post it by Sunday.

This is a small drawing of a Sprite bottle that I bought when I went to the beach with a few friends. It's pretty small and lightly drawn with a 2h pencil and colored using a set of 24 Prismacolor Lightfast colored pencils. The image is about half the size of a colored pencil. I work small so unfortunately the Sprite logo can't be seen. I messed up on it a little anyway. So this is my first piece. Hopefully I'll be able to have a portrait up some day. I hope you all like it.

Movies and Oil Paints

For weeks now I've been itching to paint, but held myself back for various reasons. Excuses really. I didn't feel as if I should paint unless I had something pre-planned and well thought out. Well, my mood decreased and I became more irritable; the heat not helping. I drew and colored, but what I really needed was to paint. So I did. I just painted. I used one paint brush, a size 4 Flibert Winsor & Newton and 7 colors. I just let my hand paint and work out my many frustrations rumbling through my head and irritations coursing through my fingers. The colors may be vibrant and may blend a bit too much, but it shows exactly what's been going on in my mind. There isn't clarity just yet, but it's breaking through. When it dries I will go back into it and make the rays of light more prominent and with more warmth. The top was an earlier version.

My beautiful J.C. Leyendecker poster that I got for Christmas, framed and hung on my wall as of this early evening! Right above my desk so that I can be inspired by this incredible illustrator! Leyendecker is hands down my ABSOLUTE favorite illustrator of all time! I had it custom framed by Jerry's Artarama and it costed me quite a pretty penny, even with a 40% off discount. However, it was beautifully done so I have no complaints...only my bank account is severely disturbed by the amount. And my father.

The final thank you cards

The sakura flowers were taking too long to draw so I switched to little vignettes of a tree on a small hill against a blue sky. I wanted to go for a relaxing feel to the image. Did I succeed? Nothing calms or makes me happier than a beautiful day.

I have finished! My scanner isn't the best, so there is actually more fullness to the tree on its right side. However, I may add more darks in the field of grass. Comments?

The Tuscan Sky

I decided to experiment with a landscape picture that I took in Italy for a thank you card to my great aunt Alice rather than draw the sakura flowers (cherry blossoms). Those tiny flowers are really time consuming. These are six very small drawings on a 4 1/2 by 6 1/8 tinted canson paper, though I cropped off the bottom area that I didn't use. Different combinations of blue and white were used for the sky and varied greens for the landscape. For the darker areas in the trees I used black, very lightly. I also layered some of the colors. The bottom right has non-photo blue over white. My goal was to achieve a bright sky. I wanted my great aunt to feel the openness of the scenery and feel relaxed looking at it. I'm not sure if I accomplished that...

I'll post the final piece later. Perhaps I'll get it done by tonight.

This is where I start...

Taking my first steps today towards blogging and getting a website up. I have only a tiny sketch since graduation. Thank you cards drawn on canson paper and colored with colored pencils. This is 1 of 14 and I think I might be changing the composition...