Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Candy, Colored Pencils, and Christmas

I've been kinda busy I guess, finishing up some projects and trying not to panic about the holidays. Let's get started with the 'catch up', shall we?

The finished SKOR bar. This is with its new owner and is being framed as we speak. (And I'm so glad I bought a few extra of these for reference, which are still in the cupboard, because I just read an article about how there's a chocolate shortage looming on the horizon - !!!!)


I did this with . . . trying to remember . . . Prismacolors and Polychromos I think, on Stonehenge paper. I know that sounds bad that I can't remember, but when you have as many brands of pencils as I do, and they get cleaned up and put away after each project, its easy to forget.) This is 5" x 10".


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Then I did this house and people portrait for a nice family who wanted to remember their vacation together in France. This one required some photoshopping to get the people from different photos all looking out the correct windows in this photo before I could start the drawing. 

On this one I used Prismacolors and Cretacolor Soho Urban Artist pencils. The Sohos are pretty hard, and had the exact right shade of blue grey I needed for those shutters. I also used a lot of their Lamp Black for shadows, which is really a grey. I don't always mix brands of pencils, but do when I need a certain color, or need something soft or harder to do a specific task. 


The original of this was 11" x 15". And it was going to Buffalo, NY, which had 5' of snow today!!! I feel like I should have wrapped it in a blanket or something. 

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I'm really honored to be included in Katherine Tyrrell's new book, Sketching 365 (or if you're in the US, its called Drawing 365). She has a Facebook page dedicated to it.
I can't remember now which pieces of mine she asked for, and I don't have a copy yet to check. But I'm in there, somewhere, along with a whole bunch of other super talented drawers. Thanks Katherine!!




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And then . . . dun, dun, DUNNNNNN . . .

CHRISTMAS

(insert those Psycho screeching violin noises here)

Every year I say "I'm not making cards! I hate making cards! I'm not making them!" and then I do.

Some of these are newish, some are oldies but goodies, image-wise. I found these fun blank cards with ornamental embossed edges, which I thought were perfect for festive cards. They all have fancy deckle edged envelopes. And they're all in the shop.














I have a couple other pieces I want to make into cards, but we'll see. One is square, so I ordered square envelopes, and when they arrived yesterday I realized I ordered the wrong size! (note to self: never order stuff before the coffee has fully kicked in) I should probably just work on my new card for this year, and some other projects that are pending. 

Its raining here, which is great for our drought. But of course the kitties are all out of whack because they can't go outside as much (translation: they're all climbing the walls in here). They have catnip and snacks and 500 places to perch and sleep, so they're OK. Which reminds me -  I need to order their new catnip cigars for Christmas (shhh, don't tell them). Seriously, if you want a really amazing cat nip toy, go here and get these - Hot Cat Treats.

Stay warm!!


Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Bricks and chocolate

So, this is some of what I've been up to. 

This drawing was a commissioned piece for a realtor. The house is stunning (inside, too). And will you just look at all those bricks. When I started this I didn't know I was going to be so fiddly with them, and do them individually like this. Usually I develop a kind of shorthand to indicate bricks or whatever, but once I started, I knew I had to draw them all to do it justice. (Yes, I'm a little nuts.) So, long (long long long) story short, I glued myself to the drawing table and drew them all, and this is how it turned out.

This is 9" x 12", Polychromo and Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore bristol.





And now I'm doing more chocolate. Another commission piece. This is how they begin. I like to 'map it all out', then go back and do the detailing.



That's it for now. No time to chit chat. Back to the drawing board!