Posts Tagged ‘painting’
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
I’ve combined my abstract painting roots with my current representational style in this painting for the Ripple Blog.
Octopus and Jellyfish
This piece is approximately 4″ x 5″ and painted with acrylics. This piece can be yours for $10. I’ll update this post when it’s listed on the ripple blog (it’s supposed to post on July 8th). ALL PROCEEDS go to one of these two non-profit charities: The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. The buyer donates directly to one of the charities, ensuring that all the money goes to the relief effort. They then send the email confirmation and the art is shipped out to them.
Note: There are still two other images of mine available. Happy Whale (digital print) and Seagulls (acrylic painting).
Happy Whale print / Seagulls painting
Tags: acrylic, art, charity, my art, painting, ripple project
Posted in art, fun stuff | 6 Comments »
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
Last week I heard that illustrator Kelly Light had started a sketch blog called, Ripple Sketches, where artists could donate art to help the animal victims of the gulf oil spill. Each piece of art is 2.5″ x 3.5″ and sells for $10. ALL PROCEEDS go to one of these two non-profit charities: The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. The buyer donates directly to one of the charities, ensuring that all the money goes to the relief effort. They then send the email confirmation and the art is shipped out to them.
I started sketching right away, thinking that it would be a quick project. Ha. I kept painting and painting and painting, until I felt the pictures were ready to be sold (see the painting process below the finished pictures). It took me a week to paint these four paintings, and in the meantime, Illustration Friday chose “Ripple” as the word for the week to encourage more artists to create ripple sketches for Kelly’s project. There’s a lot of really really great art and more keeps getting added each day. So far Kelly Light and other artists have helped raise over $3000! At $10 per piece of art, it’s a real bargain and helps a great cause. Here are my four ripple paintings (link to purchase these paintings.): Update: The Sea Turtle and Hermit Crabs have sold. The Pelicans and Seagulls are still available!
1 Sea Turtle
2 Hermit Crabs
3 Brown Pelicans
4 Seagulls
All four paintings are done in acrylic paint and are 2.5″ x 3.5.” Here’s the painting process if you want to see how they were created -
Step One: sketch
Step Two: blue
Step Three: Yellow
Step Four: final color
Because I always like seeing how other artists work, here’s my paint palette when the project was complete (I kept the acrylic paint wet by putting it in a Ziplock bag between painting sessions:
Paint Palette
For more information on how you can help animals in the gulf by purchasing art, or to purchase these paintings, please visit this page on the Ripple Sketches blog. Thanks!
Tags: acrylic, art, charity, if, illustration friday, my art, painting, process, ripple project
Posted in art, fun stuff | 9 Comments »
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is, “Fearless.” It reminded me of a series of images I’ve done over the years that I continue to revamp, because I like the visuals but haven’t found the right story yet. The images below are from the summer of 2007. There’s a more recent version, but I like this one better. There are also older versions, but I couldn’t find them in time for this post.
Here is, “Fearless Mouse” (a.k.a. Circus Mouse, Adventure Mouse, etc.)
A distant relative of the Hickory, Dickory, Dock mouse.
What time is it Ms. Mouse? It’s time to be brave …
This elephant isn't scared of a tiny mouse!
…and slide down the elephant’s trunk! Then it’s off to the Big Top, sporting her top hat and tails, because Ms. Mouse is FEARLESS! Only a fearless mouse would dare to …
They fly though the air with the greatest of ease!
… perform with two daring young sheep on the flying trapeze! After a long night at the circus, Ms. Mouse likes to go back to her tent and relax.
Bath time is better with bubbles.
She slides into a nice warm bubble bath and relives her adventures, while planning for more tomorrow.
Update: After posting this late last night (actually early morning), I had a brainstorm about where and how this might work! It won’t star the mouse, but she’ll still be running around the circus. 
I scribbled my ideas down and put them away for when I’m done with my zombie novel and chicken graphic novel projects. I love when solutions suddenly present themselves after years of not quite working out!
Tags: art, circus, if, illustration friday, mice, mouse, my art, painting, picture books, portfolio, process, time, watercolor
Posted in art, children's books, fun stuff | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
It’s easy to get attached to a story or a painting when you like one tiny part of it, even if the rest of it is horrible. Sometimes it’s best to keep the good parts and jettison the awful bits.
For writing, consider keeping a file with good lines and scenes that are available to use in a future story. If you want to keep the original, you can, but pull out the good lines so that you can find them if you have an idea how to make it work, or how to use them in a different story.
For art, if it’s so awful that you want to rip it up (we’ve all been there), consider cutting out the part you like before you rip up the rest of it. You never know when you might be able to use that image again, or if it will spark an idea for a new painting or a graphic novel.
Here are two of my latest saves (from when I went through old art files and tossed the scary pictures):
Seagull Soaring
I really love this seagull because he’s the best seagull I’ve ever painted and because he reminds me of the beach. Some day I might find a story or painting to put him in, or I’ll just continue to enjoy this little bit that I saved from an awful painting.
Cozy Little House
I liked this house too much to get rid of it. You can probably tell from the colors that the painting turned out really dark, or at least the rest of it did. This little detail was light enough to save. Maybe someone that lives at this house will go to the beach to visit the seagull some day.
Remember to save your favorite bits when you kill your awful stories and pictures. Even if they never make it into another story or picture, at least they can still make you smile
Tags: art, my art, painting, process, watercolor, writing
Posted in art, children's books, fun stuff, writing | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Do you ever have one of those sunny days that just feels like rain? Or a day where you should feel happy but you’re a bit sad? Today was like that on both counts, so I dug out one of my old paintings (from 2003). It fits how I feel and how the weather is today:
Wet Cows
The colors are happy but the cows look wet (probably because I started the picture with watercolor crayons and then held it out in the rain). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be a sunny and happy kind of day! If it’s not, maybe I’ll paint another picture. Art usually cheers me up
Update: I looked outside right after I posted this and it’s just starting to rain! See, I knew it felt like rain today.
Tags: art, cows, my art, painting, process, watercolor
Posted in art | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
I don’t have a lot of time to paint these days, so I’ve started to paint smaller (a whole lot smaller – 2″ x 2″). It’s been fun to create tiny paintings, which surprises me, because I love to painting large. My first tiny painting was an elephant.
Here’s my latest mini painting:
Tiny Bunnies
If you don’t have a lot of time to paint, consider shrinking your canvas or paper!
Do you have any tips on how to fit in art for fun when you don’t have a lot of time?
Tags: acrylic, art, bunnies, fun, my art, painting, process, rabbits
Posted in art, fun stuff | 5 Comments »
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
I’ve wanted to break out my acrylic paints for a while, but I just haven’t had the time. Once I get started on a painting, I want to continue with it until I’m finished. Today I found a solution. Instead of painting as big as I did in college (48″ x 24″ or larger) or as big as I usually do now (around 8″ x 10″), I decided to go smaller. A LOT smaller. Here is my tiny painting for today (2″ x 2″).
a tiny painting of a very large elephant
So, next time you want to paint but don’t have the time, think small!
How do you squeeze in creativity when you don’t have enough time to make art?
Tags: acrylic, art, elephants, fun, my art, painting, process
Posted in art, fun stuff | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Update: I’m working on a new digital paint style, trying different things to see what looks best. The top image is new, slightly altered from the first one (which is below it). Basically I’ve made it a bit more painterly and gotten rid of the black line. The third image is them together, side by side. Which one do you like better? (I’ve done this style before and showed it on my blog here.)
Sometimes when I watch the Olympics, I wonder about things, like do elephants have their own Olympic games? And if they do, would they have the same events as our Olympics? Here’s the first event that I imagined from their winter games – Elephant Figure Skating:
Olympic Elephant Skater (take 2)
Figure Skating at the Elephant Olympics
2 Elephant Skaters Side By Side
What do you think about when you watch the Olympics?
I’m thinking of drawing the Elephant Olympians in the curling event next. It cracks me up every time I imagine it. Plus, I need to work more on this new style; I haven’t mastered it yet.
p.s. Don’t worry, I’m not getting rid of my more graphic style, just trying something new.
Tags: art, art styles, digital, drawing, elephants, my art, Olympics, painting, Tv, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art, children's books, fun stuff | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
The Watercolor Wednesdays prompt for this week was to create a child or animal character. When I sat down to paint, this is who showed up.
Happy Puppy!
Does he look familiar? I think he looks a lot like the puppy I did for the Frankenstein prompt and the Halloween character prompt and maybe a little like this puppy too. They are all supposed to be the same kind of dog, so maybe they’re different puppies from the same litter.
The prompt for last week was Wild Thing. Originally I was going to do an image of the characters from the book/movie, but then I decided to do something slightly different in the style of Maurice Sendak. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to complete this painting, and honestly I could have spent another week or so on it to make it look the way I wanted it to look. Since I have other projects that I need to get done, I cut a few corners to finish the painting. There are parts I really like and parts I wish I could have spent the time to do right. I think I’ll be using some of the techniques and the palette in future paintings to see what happens. So, here’s my wild (chicken) thing painting.
Wild Chicken Thing and Max
Tags: art, chickens, dogs, my art, painting, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art | 12 Comments »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
The prompt this week for Watercolor Wednesdays is your favorite Halloween character. I decided to do a favorite character that I like to draw. I love drawing simple ghosts like these from last week, but for this prompt I decided to do a mummy, which is also fun. This is a more traditional mummy than the ones I usually do, so I played with texture in the background and added the little dog.
Oh No!
Tags: art, Halloween, mummy, my art, painting, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art | 3 Comments »
