The Rainbow Bridge

Georgie - A commission.  For a custom portrait of your pet/horse, click the photo

Yay, I got Ms. Georgie done in time for the anniversary of her crossing.  I really enjoyed painting her, when I finally got my butt in gear and made myself do get into the studio and paint.  Hopefully I can keep the momentum going this week (and forever, but I know that's not realistic.

  Honestly, it's really too gorgeous a day to be inside.  It's 50 something degrees and look at that sky... after the cold spell we've had, what I'd really like to do is go play with my horses, but I really don't have time today.  Figures, the same thing happened the last warm day we had, and the weather man says cold again tomorrow.  Ah well, spring soon.  Maybe some plein air painting in my future.

 

So instead, I got out my pencils and did a rough sketch  (very rough... sketching is not my thing, something I'd like to change...) of superpony Poniesdevon Rufty Tufty ("Tufty") and his rider/trainer Philippa Davies, whose adventures you can follow on Facebook (click his name).  Not only does he rear on command, but he's learning capriole and other cool stuff.  I'll share  more as I work on his painting.  Here's the sketch:

I'm hoping to make this as magical as I think it has the potential to be.. we'll see how it goes!  The background in the photo is a beach.  Really a gorgeous photo, I'm so lucky that my Kate's Horse Edits contest winners had such awesome stuff to work with!

The BEST news is that maybe I have my mojo back, or at least my work ethic.  I'm hoping that I can get into the studio at least =almost= every day this week, even if I do nothing more than a henna design or a few scribbly sketches for practice.  Or a little altar painting. 

New Year, New Challenges

January means another Artists Helping Artists 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge.  I waffled a lot about whether I want to do it... I have other stuff I've been focusing on, but I really want to get back into the studio too.   I have 3 custom order prizes I need to do, which are not one-day projects, and I also want to work on my drawing skills, so ultimately my pledge to myself was to get into the studio every day, whether I finish something or not.  So there may be a few works in progress in my uploads this month.  I also want to rework my Henna designs book, so a few of my posts may be henna.

Today I worked on a drawing of my a pair of donkeys my friend Lauren rescued.  I love seeing her posts about them and I fell in love with this picture.  I may paint it later this month.

Back to B

So, it occurred to me that 16x20 is probably a little ambitious for the alphabet project, and while I intend to finish the barrel racer picture, I'd rather do small things for the alphabet paintings so that I can feel like I'm getting somewhere. :) 

And I had to take a break from C, which is actually 7 paintings, because I ran out of panels, so here's B again!  This is watercolor on Aquabord and B is for Betta (Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens).

You might background first, and I really feel like I have no clue what I'm doing, but I suppose we'll see how it comes out and if it doesn't... well, I might try the same thing in oil, or I might just move on to D.  Unless my panels show up tomorrow.

Feeling grouchy.  I want stuff to be instantly amazing.  If you're reading this and you're an artist, please tell me you've had the same issues.  *sigh*

Anyway.  Here's layer 1 on Mr. Fish.

Oh, I almost forgot, I LOVE bettas.  I have one.  His name is Mo.  Get it?  Mo Betta?  I know.

Beginning With Bison

I'm about to embark on a series of paintings that it seems to me very important to do. A series of animal totem paintings, composed in part of the mostly realistic painting style I first learned from my mentor Karen, with symbols and accents and sometimes the animals themselves done in my henna impasto style. It seems to me a marriage of the physical and the spiritual, which is what painting must be for me.

It seems natural to begin with Buffalo (American bison, Bison bison). For one thing, its medicine is something I need in my life right now. For another, White Bison is the keeper of the North direction on the Medicine wheel, the beginning, slumber, winter time. The medicine wheel will figure significantly in Bison's painting. To begin with Bison is to begin at the beginning.

These are going to be 10x10 oil paintings on, I think, panel. I'm ordering the materials, and sketching and researching while I wait for them to arrive.

If you've got an animal you'd like to see me do, feel free to leave a comment or email me.

Almost There

FINALLY I had a day to spend a few hours painting.  It was wonderful.  The house is quiet, I put on some mood music, got out knives and paint and my Kindle for a reference photo (love that), and just played. 

Knife painting doesn't feel that much unlike finger painting to me.  It's very tactile, very much about the patterns IN the paint as well as the patterns the paint makes.  I adore this aspect of it.  I thought feathers would be a lot of fun to paint with a knife, and I was right. 

I have a few little tweaks I want to make with this, a few areas that need a little more blending or color adjustment, and I want his beak and eye to be very realistic, but he is pretty close to finished.

There seems to be a lot of confusion around species and subspecies of Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus).  I think that's what this guy is, but I see some with the black barring in their red breast feathers and some without.  A lot of the birds that were once classified as subspecies of T. haematodus are now getting their own classifications too.

At any rate, they are funny, active little birds whose diet consists mainly of nectar.  It's getting popular at many zoos in the US to have a large walk-in aviary with lories and lorikeets flying loose, and you can buy a cup of nectar to feed them.  I get a huge kick out of this, and both the Nashville and Cleveland Metroparks zoos have such exhibits.  If you get a chance to try it, take the kids. :)

Here are a few pics from our adventures at Nashville zoo with my niece and nephew, and the rainbow birds.

Scritches

Say hello to my muse.  This is Clio, my Senegal parrot.  She lives in my studio (well away from paint and fumes).  It's spring, which means she has itchy pinfeathers on her head.  When a new feather comes in, it's encased in keratin which the bird preens off with its beak.  Only thing is, they can't reach their own heads, so they generally use the buddy system and preen them for each other. 

Problem is, Clio's a single girl, so my much less efficient fingernails have to suffice for her.  She tells me she needs her head scratched by putting her foot up to her head and making scritching motions.  She's not much of a talker, her only word is "Up," (what I tell her when I want her to get on my hand), but she does a masterful imitation of the microwave, and me laughing, and smoochy noises.

Not much time to paint today but I squeezed an hour in, which felt good because I've hardly gotten any time to paint at all this week.  So I worked on knife-painting (impasto) my Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus).  I think his eye is a little too far back so I may have to fix that.

That said, it was a ton of fun painting all those little headfeathers that Clio likes me to scratch for her so much!  Knife painting is all about the texture and birdy heads have plenty of it.  The only thing I'm concerned about is I don't think I have an appropriately shaped knife for the feathers lower down.... I need something kind of shaped like a fan brush.  Not sure such a thing exists... hmmm.

More about lorikeets next time!

Minus the Rainbow

It's amazing how much better I'm in the Flow when I paint every day.

This past week has been horrendous.  My son Brandon's car blew a head gasket a week and a half ago, so I've been driving him to college and to work.  Then, my husband's car broke down last week... so I've basically been playing bus driver and getting everyone where they need to go, and squeezing in my day job, which has been leaving me NO time to paint. 

They're both off today, which means I have been really excited that I'd get some studio time, but I woke up without the slightest clue what I wanted to do, other than I wanted to paint a bird . I wasn't sure if I wanted to use a brush or knife, and I wasn't sure what kind of bird I wanted to paint.  Then I thought I'd work on my landscape, changed my mind about that, and finally settled on a really big knife painting of a rainbow lorikeet, since I've been working a lot in dark colors and I thought it might be fun to do something bright and feather-textured.

So, I worked on the background and more detail-necessary parts of this little guy.  I dunno, he's sort of looking more like an Indian Ringneck parakeet than a Lori to me, at least for the moment, but I'm sure that'll change when he gets his coat of many colors.

I love parrots.  I had budgies when I was a kid, and a mischievous lovebird named Gizmo who enjoyed escaping her cage while I was at school and flinging everything off my dresser and then running to hte edge to watch where it fell.  She also would fly up to the ceiling fan (which was always off unless she was securely locked in) and land on it, and the momentum of her landing would push the blades a little bit and she'd go for a ride.  Since then, I've had a Noble macaw, a couple of parrotlets, cockatiels and lovebirds, and currently a Senegal parrot who is just a sweetheart and really enjoys it when I spend time in the studio (where she lives... well away from access to paint, and fumes).  Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and Nashville zoo have lorikeet exhibits where you can go into their habitat and feed them nectar... they are such colorful little clowns.

Anyway, here's stage one on this guy... and it's a big canvas, 18 x 24, same size as my flamenco dancer.  I'm not sure I'm going to knife in the background at all, I kind of like the way it is.

Hopefully I'll get some time to finish him tomorrow, or at least make a dent!

Blasted Weimaraner

I think I'm finally done with this thing.  Am I?  I dunno.  Something about his face is still irking me.  I decided it was time to step away from the canvas, back up and look it it, and then walk away for a little while.  Sometimes you have to do that, and then you come back and it doesn't look like half the critter's face is on upside down. 

But, I've been working on this thing for two years.  It was the painting I started when I wasn't really painting, and it sat on top of the entertainment center and stared at me for over a year.  I worked on him a couple of days in December. 

This morning when I was trying to decide what to paint, I thought about the unfinished stuff... I've got the flamenco dancer, the water droplet, Squire's castle, Chuck's waterfall, and this guy all in various stages of not done yet, so I decided it was time to sit down and clean up some WIPs.  Starting with the one that's been sitting around forever.

So, there you go.

I also varnished about a dozen finished paintings and right now I think I am getting high from fumes.  Whee!  No wonder the dog looks trippy.  But, for the most part, he's done.  Yay!  Bring on the next one.

Koi Band

$25 plus shipping



This is my largest watercolor to date, about 9x12. When I sat down today I thought I'd paint a carousel horse but this was what happened instead.

The reference photo I used is beautiful and I'm not sure I captured the values I wanted to... I just don't know how to create the dramatic darks in watercolor. So I'm not 100% pleased with the water, but I think the fish came out pretty good.   As you can see, I did several layers for the background.

Carrie Waller is doing a workshop in March that covers exactly that, plus her amazing luminous glass painting technique in watercolor.... I sure would like to go.  Dare I hope I can get to it?  For my birthday maybe? :)

Also, blue painters tape sucks.  Just for the record.

New Challenges

I kicked around a few different ideas as to what to do with my art now that the 30/30 Challenge is over.  I thought I wanted to narrow my focus a bit (from completely unfocused to... something, lol).  I find that I don't want to restrict myself to one media... I'm enjoying dabbling in oil here, watercolor there, and a little of this and that in between.

What I DID decide is that I want to focus a bit on my drawing and sketching skills, so I was going to do some of that.

But then my friend Janin who did the 30/30 Challenge with me decided to host this One Billion Rising painting challenge, and, well, I am too intrigued to ignore it.  Here's what she has to say about it:

Thoughts and love have the power to bring about change.  For 14 days, beginning February 1, 2013, I invite every artist who comes across this challenge to make one piece of art per day leading up to V day.  It can be drawing, painting, photography, sculpture-- or any medium you wish-- to create a daily piece of beauty that celebrates femininity, women and dancing, as a way to increase awareness, empower women and girls to break the cycle of violence, demonstrate our global solidarity, and positively shift the world energy.

And I am all about that.

So I am going to use this month to explore femininity, and what it means to me to be a woman, and what it means to be a woman in the world in 2013.  Dancing interests me too..

So I started looking for ideas for paintings of women.  I flipped through my reference photos.

But I found this one, and it was perfect.  This is a Fresian mare and foal engaging in mutual grooming... which is the most friendly and intimate thing two horses do together.  This is about a mom teaching her offspring to relate to the world.  How to love.  I loved the photo... the little filly can barely reach mama's withers and her nose is all wrinkled up with trying :)

And for me this is the function of femininity.  This is our first and truest responsibility in how we relate to the world.  Giving of yourself, loving your children, showing them what it is to love and be loved.  I think that if we can do a better job of that across the world, then the violence against women that One Billion Rising is all about, will naturally be lessened.

If you're an artist, and especially if you've just finished your 30/30 challenge and are wondering what to do next, check out Wise Ramblings (Janin's Blog) and also the One Billion Rising website.

Crazy Frog

3 x 3 Mini Painting Original on Canvas. Click to purchase.

Another little 3 x 3 mini canvas today.  I've been doing these little ones because I want to get a jump on my daily paintings in case I don't get a chance to paint a few days next week.  I really liked this little tree frog so I decided to paint him today.  I liked his bright colors and sucker-pad toes.  :)

I think this is Litoria chloris but I'm no expert on tree frogs.  They're native to Australia.

I do think I'd enjoy keeping frogs one of these days, but for now I'm focused on my praying mantises, which I also would like to paint in oil at some point.

Mini Paintings

I got the awesome news yesterday that my friend from high school, Monica, is stopping by to visit on her way from an archaeological dig in Arkansas back home to Cleveland, and staying a few days.  I'm so excited to see her, it's been 20 years!

BUT... that means it's likely I won't get time to paint Tuesday or Wednesday next week, so I want to get a couple ahead.  As a result I worked on some small paintings in oil today.

I love minis and ACEOs because it's an affordable way for anyone to collect miniature original works of art.  If you'd like to purchase any of these, check out the ACEO/Mini Page.

Stop and Smell the Daisies, 3 x 3 mini canvas

I roughed Stop and Smell the Daisies in ages ago, and then misplaced it in all the confusion of my son moving out for college, back home, then away again, and then back home again.  I found it this past weekend and put some more details on it, but it's not done yet... close, but not quite.

Joy and Friendship, 3 x 3 mini canvas. Click picture to purchase.

This one, however, I started and finished today.  I left the charcoal outlines in it a bit because I decided I like them.  This is a 3 x 3 on a mini canvas.

What Cheer? 2.5 x 3.5 oil on ACEO card, for sale here 

And I roughed in this little oil ACEO at the beginning of the month and got around to finishing it today.  I was trying to remember what the birdwatcher people say the cardinal says (they have words to match the calls of a lot of birds, which is why Chickadees are named chickadee-dee-dee), and I looked it up.  What cheer, cheer, cheer?  And then as I started to type this paragraph I realized I was hearing a cardinal outside my window.

I love these little guys... they sure brighten up a dreary winter.  I was washing dishes this morning and Mrs. Cardinal paid a visit to my garden, which is right outside my kitchen window. 

I have a fascination with painting birds lately... and I just got a book on painting wildlife, so expect to see more of them :)

Knotted

This is a little knotwork bird inspired by an illustration in the Book of Kells, done in my watercolor sketchbook.  As usual for knotwork, I created the design on graph paper and transferred via graphite paper to the sketchbook.  This only fills about a quarter of the sketchbook page so I will probably give it some accompanying calligraphy when I decide what I want it to say.

I had a few issues with it.  First, I got so engrossed in making it look like a bird that I forgot how the knotwork should go, and so the neck part is a little more tangled than it should be.  Also, my graphite paper seems to have wax or something in it that resists watercolor, so my lines show a little white here and there where they shouldn't.  But, overall, I'm pretty happy with it.  I want to do a knotwork animal of my own design, eventually, and maybe incorporate it into a watercolor painting somehow.  Baby steps :)

Creobroter

Today's watercolor sketchbook page fulfills several of my "try this" list items for the month (see the 30 in 30 page for more info). 1) it's done from a picture I took, 2) it's one of my pets, and 3) it's a mantis.

I keep and sometimes breed 13 species of exotic praying mantids. This was my first one, Kali, just after she molted to become an adult and got her pretty wings. She's an Indian Flower Mantis, (Creobroter pictipennis).

Mantids make really interesting pets and I thought they'd also be fun to paint. Some of her markings look like they were painted on with watercolor anyway, so I figured that'd be a good media for it. I need to take more pics of my critters and paint them.

I haven't updated it in a while, but if mantids interest you my mantis site is at Mantis Files.

Surprise, Surprise

To my complete shock, I CAN do an oil painting in a day. This took me around an hour and a half. It's the other painting meant to be for the Creative Every Day theme for January, "Dark".

Painting in basically greyscale was interesting, too. It let me focus completely on value. I may experiment with more scenes in black and white to explore this further. I've also considered doing a full under painting in b&w with transparent colors layered over it.

(Wow, this is REALLY dark on my monitor.  I hope you can see the subtle dark tones on yours.)

Flaxen-Haired Girl

They say it takes 30 days for a habit to become ingrained.  I've been painting every day for about that long now, and I feel pretty good because this morning my day-job (medical transcription) boss called and asked could I get a file done STAT, so, I didn't get to do my morning journal-meditate-paint routine.  Still, I got the work done and went to the studio.  It's cool that it's becoming part of my day.

I thought I'd do some little ACEO sized paintings, playing with my new watercolor skills.  It didn't exactly work out that way.  The ACEO "watercolor" paper SUCKS for watercolors.  Literally.  It sucks up the paint instantly which means you can't work with the wet to blend much at all. 

I persevered anyway and came up with this cartoony-looking pony that is absolutely unlike anything I've ever done before (I am not that great with a line, so I tend to erase a lot when drawing).  Still, I'm kind of intrigued by the little thing.  It's definitely not perfect but I think, with better paper and practice, I could get the hang of this.  I'd be way better off cutting up the 5 x 7 Stratford 140 lb paper I was working with yesterday than trying to work with these awful little cards.  Maybe they'll be good for something else.  Markers?  I dunno.  Colored pencil maybel

For my next trick I tried a little blue and gold macaw ACEO.  I paint horses better than most things because I have been obsessed with them since I could recognize one in a picture and when I was a kid that was pretty much all I drew.  Birds, I haven't drawn or painted so much, but I do love birds.  I have a little Senegal parrot I intend to try to paint from life at some point. 

For a long time I was a veterinary technician at a clinic that saw small animals and exotics, so I got to work with birds a LOT.  Holding them for a veterinary exam is a challenge sometimes! -- especially macaws like this one, which are a lot of bird to handle and when they aren't happy they are ear-splittingly vocal.  Anyway, I had fun with this one, because they are such cool birds that I've spent time admiring them in detail... the little black mask of feather tufts on their faces, their wrinkly skin around their beaks, and their glorious, glorious feathers.  I have never owned a big, big macaw but my first parrot (not counting little cockatiels, parakeets and lovebirds) was a "mini" macaw (a Hahn's macaw) named Simon.  One of these days I want to paint one of these beautiful birds in vibrant oils, too.

Grey Ghost

A little more work on the Weimaraner. Ears and face mostly.

I didn't get a chance to paint this weekend. Lots of social activities, went to see the Hobbit. Which in my opinion was art in itself. If I lived in New Zealand I think I would be a landscape painter. That is, If I could ever commit to painting just one thing... Which I doubt.