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!