The Veranda - Four

new sketch

new sketch overlaid

face lift!

I decided I wanted the cheetah to have a more stylized face since I think he looks too much like a house cat. I think the new face is better - now he needs his spots! I'm not quite ready to finish him up, first I need to face the grim and taxing chore of adjusting the perspective of the veranda and the woman's chair. This is where the "pain" in painting comes into play. Once I get past that, the rest will be pure fun.

The Veranda - Three

After I finished blocking in the color for the veranda floor, I realized it was the same color that I will be using for the cheetah. Hmmmm. That will never do. So I overpainted it with white so that the cheetah will be easier to paint. I got rid of the pot belly on the cheetah, wish it were that easy to do in real life. Still gotta fix that face. Not only the cheetah's face needs altering, now the odd perspective which works in the Persian paintings is really not working here. No doubt because I did not use the same perspective on the homes in hills.

So I need to make a decision, since I want consistency. Either I change the Western style perspective of the homes and "flatten" them out so that it becomes more like a Persian miniatures painting style, or I change the perspective of the veranda and the woman's chair to a more Western style of perspective. I decide to compromise. I like the homes as they are, and I don't want to change them. On the other hand, I still want to infuse the painting with a sense of the past, so even though I will be doing lots of corrections in the foreground, I'm going to have to figure out how to retain the air of a Persian miniature painting. Maybe I can't do it. Maybe this little challenge is just not possible. But I'll try it out. Sometimes the best results come from mistakes and unplanned detours!

The Veranda - Two

The dark green hills have been lightened to a lime green and additional coloring added to the lower part of the painting. I thought blue would be a nice undercoat of color for the giant bush/tree on the right side. It was a spontaneous decision, and now I kinda like it as is, it reminds me of a lilac bush. But I'll come back to that later, I'd like to map in the other areas with color first, just to see how it all works together.

The Veranda - One

the study

the sketch

detail

Now we are off and running. I've sketched the image onto a 40" x 30" hardwood panel and begun the addition of some background color. I like working on a wooden panel as opposed to canvas because I can do fluid line work and intricate details much easier, and since I'm working in acrylics, this too is a consideration. I already see where I will have to make corrections. The cheetah's face is just not right. But we shall get to that when we get to that!

The Veranda - Gathering Ideas

Sometimes I can't post a new painting every other day, because it takes longer than a couple of days to finish a painting, especially if it's large. So I thought, why not post the progress of a painting as I create it? Hmmmmm - could be interesting! Or not! Let's just see.

 So here we go. I've always been fascinated by Persian and Indian miniature paintings of the 6-7th century AD, and when I came across these paintings (above), I decided to paint a modern equivalent of the same theme, a lovelorn woman waiting for the return of her beloved. I'm going to utilize the ancient techniques of shifting perspective points, flat planes and decorative elements to imitate the style of a miniature painting while still maintaining a contemporary outlook.

 Here's some scrap I've found to help me create this painting:

Here's the study, a very loose photo sketch put together in Photoshop. The grid lines will help me as I sketch it onto my 40" x 30' panel:

I used the headdress of the first miniature painting in place of the towel, and I also reduced the size of her hands and feet, although maybe not quite enough to be as exaggerated as I was envisioning. And we single gals, we love our kitty cats!

Illustration Friday - Jump

I created this painting years ago, as part of my "Endangered Species" series. The numbers are symbolic of the number of species left, or the number of excuses we give for not addressing the loss of our wildlife. They definitely are jumping!

Illustration Friday - Heights

 "The Letters"   acrylic on hardboard   40" x 30" 

Life is a balancing act.  Here's a guy carrying a heavy load while facing uncertainty.

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

 "Aphrodite at Starbucks"   oil on canvas    48" x 72"

There is nothing more puzzling than love. Just when you think that Love has found everyone else but you, she arrives, bearing a cup of coffee.

Skinny Jeans 2

I'm still working on  sketches for the skinny jeans ad. The first round of ideas including this sketch of a cafeteria line was eliminated, so the creative folks came up with a second round of ideas which included these sketches. I just found out that this campaign didn't make it past the final stages either, so it's back to the drawing board. I love doing more work, but my heart goes out to the copywriters and art directors who need to come up with more ideas after all this time of brainstorming!

Illustration Friday - Vocal

Remember those campfire days when your dad used to wear a fedora and your kid sister had "pig tails" and little brother went crazy with his ukulele? Actually, that was a bit before my time, but with a little imagination, I created this retro illustration as part of a fabric design a few years back. It seemed the perfect submission for this week's theme for Illustration Friday.

Minesota Medicine cover

This cover may have contained the most layers I've ever dealt with in Photoshop - 82 layers! Every pipe had it's own layer, so that the magazine's fabulous and very talented art director Janna Netland Lover could move them around and create spot illustrations for the internal pages. The preliminary sketches are posted on March 25th, you can see that I moved the man to the right to make room for the mailing label. It was fun to do, and a challenge to remember where everything was located!

Skinny Jeans

Another commercial assignment from a retailer for an upcoming back-to-college catalog. These marker sketches are not final art but rather meant as visual guides for the photographers - they are fun to do and quick, with immediate deadlines! They did not want facial features since the image will be cropped, probably just below the shoulders, so it looks a bit weird. The new leggings that look like jeans are great - if you are skinny!

Know your own bone

I've been formulating some ideas for new work, and I have to admit, I'm thinking, this is really goofy, why am I doing this, and have I lost my mind? But on the other hand, it feels so right. I am having so much fun watching the work unfold in surprising ways, even as I wrestle with it. I encounter stops and starts - one idea might bloom into another, while yet another idea withers on the vine. And sometimes no ideas materialize at all. It is such a fascinating process, this unfolding of creativity.

Annie Dillard writes, "You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment. The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's one's most intimate sensitivity." And Thoreau, the original Follow Your Bliss cheerleader, wrote "Know your own bone: gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still." That spark of astonishment is what thrills me - it's the carrot that dangles in front of my artistic nose and keeps me at the grindstone. Or gnawing at that bone.

Collage Magazine Cover

Last week I received a call from Janna Netland Lover of Local Design Group here in Minneapolis. Would I be interested in doing a collage for the cover of the April Minnesota Medicine magazine? Oh yes yes yes I would!

The featured article addresses the topic of innovations in medical practices, in thinking outside the box. I submitted the above thumbnail sketches, using a template of the cover (working with a mailing label is always a challenge!). Janna chose the second one, the vintage clip art profile, which was my favorite, too. I'll post the final version next time.

Happy 99th, Dad!

                                                                from Dad's sketchbook

                                                         Dad in the clubhouse, 1955

                                                 Dad at the Farmer's Market last fall

 Today is my dad's 99th birthday. To the man with the biggest heart, who for nearly a century (!) has encouraged my creativity and independence, who gave his community fifty years of fun and entertainment with his miniature golf course, who to this day is my inspiration and mentor,
---- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Anniversary

The two year anniversary of my younger brother's passing was last week, and so I have been thinking of him constantly. Oddly enough, other people who have no knowledge of this anniversary have spoken to me about Paul, finding his letters while cleaning out drawers, or mentioning that they found a photo of a memorable occasion they shared with him in the past. It's almost as if the Universe is gently calling attention to his memory to mark this milestone.

 I came across this scrap of paper which I have saved. Years ago, Paul and I took Dad to a Taco Bell which he loves, and while we were finishing our lunch, Paul sketched this bucking bronco and cowboy on the receipt. I was charmed by it! I think I'll find a tiny frame for this monumental treasure.

Cleaning House

DO YOU THINK I HAVE ENOUGH MARKERS? Sheesh. And you know what, I would answer, no. It's like having too many old clothes in the closet and you still can't find anything to wear! I have markers from the 80's made by a California company that went out of business many years ago, but I still cling to those markers and mix up the ink refills like a deranged chemist. I have the original Tria markers, and they too, are no longer produced. I hear the second generation Tria markers were not as well received as the first, so I cling to mine, trying to mix the refill colors from the existing dyes that I have. The Prismacolors are nice, but since they are non-refillable, they are in all stages of depletion. I'd like to pare this mess down to a simple palette, but I'm not sure I have it in me. We'll see.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Did you know that almost every country celebrates a version of this holiday in their own fashion, sometimes on another date? For instance, in Japan, the tradition is very ritualized and is all about the giving of chocolates, so much so that on this date chocolate companies make half their annual income. The Western customs of giving of candy, flowers and cards and are uncommon. But here's the part I find most interesting - only the women give chocolate to the men, and it's all about giving just the right amount of chocolate. There is good chocolate, and the not-so-good, and in offices, every man is presented with his appropriate type of chocolate. What a great way to tell that guy what you really think of him! Then the men are expected to return the favor in March, on White Day, the color of the reciprocal chocolate. They must return a gift two or three times as valuable as the one they received. (excellent idea) To ignore this custom is viewed as an act of superiority, and a gift of equal value indicates he is cutting the relationship. I must confess, I gathered this information from the Internet, and we all know how reliable THAT source is, so if this is outdated or incorrect, please let me know!

These illustrations were preliminary sketches for an assignment I received several years ago.

 I hope you find time to do an act of kindness today, we all need a little love in our lives.

Saturday morn

What's so special about this photo, you may be asking. BLUE SKY, that's what! It's been so gray here in the Midwest, it really gets to me. I was standing in the grocery store parking lot when I looked up and saw this sight. Even though it was 17 degrees below zero (counting the wind chill factor), seeing this sunny blue sky warmed me right up!

Illustration Friday - Suspense

Nothing says suspense like a volcano on the horizon!

A very odd story accompanies this painting: I painted this several years ago after seeing this lovely location (minus the volcano) in a travel magazine. I made up the rest of the composition, the image came into my head without any other source of inspiration. Six months later I hung it in my studio for an Open Studio event, and a woman came up to me and said, "In my country (she was Japanese) we have a children's fairy tale in which two rabbits get in a boat and row out to a volcano. Have you read it?" I had not - and I was amazed that somehow I must have channeled into that ancient fable!

I have a "thing" for bunnies.....have you noticed?