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.