something new for me

So a very nice guy bought his wonderful animal loving wife a very thoughtful birthday present (a painting from me). The wonderful animal loving wife loved her gift (*phew*) and told a super nice co worker how much she loved her painting. This super nice co worker is also a super nice pug loving neighbor of mine (who knew!?!). And for her I am working on two paintings. Each painting includes a black pug. Pugs are adorable but I found them very hard to paint. They are so damn cute but one wrong line and you can make them look like a weird cartoon character. So I was nervous I would not be able to do her adorable little buddies justice and after many sketches I decided I had to just jump into painting. I got as far as having the entire piece painted with the exception of the eyes and I was still very worried. But I painted in the eyes as exactly as they were in the picture provided and tada!

I love it! And more importantly, so did my super nice pug loving neighbor. So on to painting two...

Finished Commission

It has been a while since my last post. Although I have been slacking in this area, I have been super busy. Lots of new and exciting things going on I will share the details soon. And all this upcoming excitement means the crazy schedule will continue. But I LOVE it! Soo....

Here is commission I completed this past week. A local news anchor (I wont use her name because I have not asked her for permission and being that she seems like one of the sweetest people ever, I would hate to be rude!) asked me to create this piece for her sister's birthday.

Adorable little guy, right?!



Here is the piece that I sent along for the client. Everyone has been so nice and she has a dog that sounds just like my parent's dog so it had to be done.





I also worked on a smaller version of 'Full Moon' (see earlier post please) which was a big hit at the HSCC event. Rumor has it that the piece sold right away but many others showed interest and one gentleman in particular showed a great deal of interest. The woman that originally purchased 'Full Moon' so kindly withdrew her purchase saying she would buy another piece so this gentleman could have it. That is just a perfect summary of my experience with the HSCC event. I know I keep saying it but everyone has been so amazingly nice. My day job includes a lot of 'not-nice' interactions so I guess its possible I appreciate the little things so much more.

So back to work..on what I havent decided yet.

So Jessica formerly of the HSCC really liked the Rabbit Ears piece and was thinking it would make a good gift for her brothers upcoming wedding. She had some different color preferences and ultimately decided on the biggest canvas I had in stock. And when ti came to the end, I LOVED her choices! It was so much fun to do this for her and she was so excited about the process. And I have to say she did a great job on choosing details for the piece. Amazing. I hope her brother and his new wife to be know what she put into this gift. I tried to take some pictures to show her the process but forgot to share them with her before she left for PA. So here for everyone to see are a few steps in the process.




Above I am testing the same three colors in different areas of the painting. Jessica wanted a wine color scheme so we ofcourse went with Napa Red! I just made small mock ups of the piece and alternated the colors.





Here is the color set up I planned to go with. It is what we originally discussed but it was good to verify this was the best choice. The lighter green background allowed the dogs to pop. And using the red for the dog making the rabbit ears helped point the focus to the mischievous one.





Here is a peek at my messy messy downstairs studio. Using the largest canvas I had in stock (36"x48") left few places to play with this piece. Not to mention I havent cleaned any studio area in my house since I started working on pieces for the HSCC event a couple months ago(guess what Im doing this weekend?!). I put the base coat on the canvas while on a table. Although I dont love using an easel I did move the piece to an easel for the rest of the work.




I am very happy with how the piece came out and I think Jessica was too. She is such a sweetie. Im bummed I didnt meet her sooner. You cant really see from this picture but I added tiny little girly eyelashes to the green dog. The two pups are supposed to symbolize her brother and his wife-to-be. And in my cold medicine induced state, I almost forgot to take a picture before sending the piece off on its way. This is not the best pic but I had to use it because you can see a tiny bit of YellowDog's butt. He is pretty used to the camera at this point. At this particular time he was sulking because he knew I was leaving and not taking him. I just couldnt with that huge canvas in the car. No worries though, he got a nice dog ice cream treat when I returned. Plus, my portion of the proceeds from this commission went towards YellowDog's vet bills. Cute little sick booger!