Merry Belated Christmas!

I'm sorry that I have been MIA for so long. I will admit, time has gotten away from me. I screwed up on my drawing for the portrait swap...and then just have not had to the time to fix or restart it. Before I knew it, it was Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas....I feel like all three holidays came in about as many days too. I don't know where all the time went.

I will post my messed up drawing in another post. I will also be fixing or restarting the portrait in the next day or two. I'll post that as well. But for now, I wanted to show you all what I have been busy with. Here are my invitations, made completely from scratch. The design came from this blog. Sensitive information blurred or blacked out for privacy purposes.


I have also been working on a couple of other DIY projects. I am making my own Ringbearer Pillow, Flowergirl Basket, Guest Book, and Garters. Normally, I wouldn't do all of that. But there is a reason. I really wanted to get married in my grandmother's wedding dress. It was a beautiful wedding gown.


Unfortunately, it wasn't properly preserved, so when my grandmother brought it back from New York for me, it was literally shredded and yellowed. All I had was the bodice, and a relatively small piece of the skirt. (I really should have taken a picture of that before I started working with it). But I thought if I can't wear the dress, maybe I can use it for something else...and incorporate it into my wedding somehow. And that thought evolved into the Ringbearer pillow, Flowergirl basket, Guestbook, and Garters! My mom whitened the dress, but for some reason, a piece of cording or elastic that ran all through the lace did not whiten. The lace whitened beautifully, but the the cord or elastic design stayed yellow. So it dawned on me to dye it purple...to match my wedding color. So I did just that. All of the lace parts of the dress dyed beautifully. The rest of it, I ironed slighlty...I still wanted a it to be a little bit wrinkly because I liked the way it looked. And so far, I have completed the Ringbearer Pillow.

The white fabric, the lace (which I dyed purple) and the purple button in the middle (also dyed) are all parts of my grandmother's wedding dress. I showed it to her a couple of days ago and she was thrilled that I was able to do something with her dress, and that I could get as much out of it as I did. She really didn't think it would be good for anything. But I successfully recycled it, and made it into something my family can continue to cherish for years to come.

So now on my "to-do" list, I still have to complete all the other things listed. But there's time for that...so I will be going back to my portrait for the portrait swap and will post that very soon. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Oh, by the way, I did rush to get my Christmas Card drawn just in time to mail them out a few days before Christmas!

Portrait Swap & Art Contest

The Portaiture Forum on Wetcanvas is having their 6th Annual Portrait Swap. I have always missed the deadline for signing up because I spend most of my time in the Colored Pencil Forum, and only check in on the Portraiture Forum once in a while. So last year, after missing the deadline yet again, I put a reminder in Google Calendar to email me weekly during the month of October, to remind me to check the forum for the Portrait Swap thread. I FINALLY got to sign up! Yesterday I found out that my parter is Claire Beadon Carnell. While you're checking out her website, check out her blog as well. I am so excited because Claire is a very talented artist, and I know that she will do an awesome job on my portrait.

I can't wait to exchange photos and get started! I had my co-worker take some photos of me yesterday so that I could choose one for the swap. I hope to get some time to look at them tonight and choose one to send to her before I go to the gym.

I've only participated in one portrait swap before. The Colored Pencil Forum had a "Guess Who?" Portrait Exchange in December of 2005. That one was done a little bit differently. We were not paired up together painting our partner's portrait. Instead it was kept secret who got who, and in the end when they were all posted up in the thread by a non-participating artist, we all had to guess who the artist was, and who the subject was. That was a lot of fun, and I was thrilled to find out that the artist who drew my portrait was Nicole Caulfield. Back in February this year, I went to a workshop taught by Nicole. She is one of my favorite colored pencil artists. Here is the portrait that Nicole drew of me.

And here is the portrait that I drew of another artist in the exchange. His name was Ed Gilmore, but I never saw him in the forum again after the exchange. I think I've improved a bit since 2005! lol

After the portrait swap is done, the artists mail their portraits to their respective partners. It's so much fun, and a great way to get to know fellow artists that you follow on the forum. Not to mention, not only do you get a piece of original artwork, but you also spread your artwork out to other states or sometimes even other countries that it may not necessarily go to otherwise.

So look forward to seeing my finished portrait in the coming weeks. I have to check on the dates again to find out what the deadline is.

In other news, I had intended to enter Zebrog into the Artist's Magazine All-Media Art Competition, but the deadline was November 2nd and I missed it. But I just got an email this morning that the deadline was extended to December 1st! So I might just have a chance to enter afterall! I just have to get my butt in gear and finish that drawing!

Halloween!

I love Halloween! When they announced a costume contest at work this year, I jumped right on it. I've had it in my head for the past several months that I wanted to be a dead bride for Halloween this year. Seems only appropriate since I'm getting married in less than 4 months. lol. Wow...how time flies! I looked online for months to find a dress and even looked into the possibility of making my own dress. But I couldn't find anything I liked. I was about ready to just order an adult Corpse Bride costume from Halloween Express online, but I was really feeling like that would not be an appropriate costume for work. When they announced the contest at work, I clocked out for lunch and grabbed a co-worker and dragged her to thrift stores in the area looking for a dress that would work. The third store we stopped at was Goodwill, and there was this beautiful wedding dress on a manniquin right in the front of the store...it was exactly what I was looking for. I tried it on and it fit like a glove. It was $49.99, but how could I turn it down?? When we got to the register, my co-worker asked for a discount, and they gave me the dress for $34!! It was like it was meant to be! So I spent the rest of the week planning the details....I bought fake french manicured nails on sale for $3 at CVS, and I used nail clippers to make them jagged and cracked. I used an old dirty gold and cubic zirconia ring that I had for my engagement ring. I bought a small bouquet of carnations and just let them die, then I wrapped them in pearls for my dead bouquet. A few toy roaches and rats....a little fake blood...and my costume won me first place in the contest!

I don't think I can top that next year. But we'll see. lol.

Now that Halloween is over...it's time to concentrate on Christmas. I will be designing and drawing my annual Christmas card very soon. I will post when that is finished. I also have a few more 5x7 portraits that I want to draw and I do have my paper now...so I'll try to work that in as well. I hope you all had a very Happy Halloween!

Tweeking Complete

I know I haven't been good about keeping up with the blog, but I've just got so much going on lately, I haven't found time to draw anything. I finally got around to tweeking the portrait of my brother. The problem was that I had drawn his eyes tilted, but the rest of his face straight. So I corrected the bottom portion of his face, and he is complete.

I do plan to do some more work on the zebrog soon. There is a contest I want to enter that into and the deadline is November 2. I will probably try to finish it over the weekend that my fiance goes out of town.

I also have a few more pictures selected to do portraits from, just waiting on an order of paper from Dick Blick to arrive and I'll get started on those.

Portrait of My Brother

Ok, this one needs a little tweeking, but I just wanted to hurry up and post something to show that I am still working! This is another 5x7 portrait, this time on Uart 600. There is something off, that I can't quite put my finger on. I want to say it's the eyes, but when I measured everything using the line technique from Ann Kullberg's book "Colored Pencil Secrets for Success", the eyes lined up correctly with the reference photo. As did everything else. But something IS off. I have a feeling it might have to do with the tilt of the head. In the reference photo, his head is tilted, which is what makes his eyes appear lopsided...but in my drawing, I don't think I quite have the tilt. Over the weekend, when I'm not so tired and have more motivation, I plan to put it into Photoshop and overlay it on top of the reference photo and decrease the opacity to see if I can see where I'm off.

On another subject, my friend that I threw the baby shower for had her baby on September 4th at 6:02pm. She is a beautiful and healthy baby girl. I will definitely be drawing her in the near future. Oh, I just realized darnit, I was holding her at 6:02pm, and I didn't even say Happy Birthday. :( Oh well, she was sleeping anyway. I have to order more Uart paper so that I can start my drawings of her.

I am finding that I prefer the Uart paper. I like the texture...it takes alot of pencil. But, I am still learning. Colors don't exactly turn out like you expect them to on this paper, they turn out a little bit darker. But you can easily correct things by either going over them with another pencil, or by lifting the pigment with sticky tack. The only thing I don't like is the color. I'm finding that I don't like the look of portraits on the tan color of the paper, so I need to add a background color to make the portrait stand out. Eh...maybe I will go back to the Fabriano Tiziano occasionally, just for the colors.

I do want to try a portrait on Ampersand Pastelbord. I know that Nicole Caulfield doesn't like portraits on the pastelbord...but others seem to do fine with it. Might as well give it a try. I do like the pastelbord so far, as I'm working on the Zebrog. Speaking of which, my model for that drawing needs to go out to potty. I will continue to try not to let so much time go by between posts! Goodnight :)

Back in the Groove Soon, I Promise!

I know I haven't posted for almost a whole month, but things got really busy for me for a while. I got overwhelmed and very stressed over the baby shower, which turned out to be a success, despite the flaws. lol. I was rushing around til the very last minute, I had a "to-do" list I was following, and then guests started showing up early, the guest of honor showed up 45 minutes early, and I stopped looking at my list, got thrown off and forgot to do a lot of things. Sugar cookies didn't get made, the paper I had printed for people to sign didn't get put out, windows didn't get cleaned, the towels didn't come out of the dryer and get hung in the bathroom, and nobody thought to tell me that they had nothing to dry their hands on. I almost forgot about the favor bags, and 2 people had already left before I realized it. But luckily there was someone there that was able to take them to the guests that had left.

In the midst of shower planning, things got a little bit chaotic when I tried to get my wedding save the dates made at the same time. The house looked like a tornado had gone through it, which didn't make it any easier to have it clean before the shower. The Save the Dates were a lot of work to put together. They will be in the mail hopefully before the end of this week.

During the party, I have to admit, I have never felt so relieved. It was like a huge weight was suddenly lifted off my shoulders, and I am so glad to have it all behind me. Now I can just focus on my wedding plans, and relax for a little bit.

As promised, I was working on a lot of creative things for the baby shower, and now that it's over, I can post pictures. So here they are (in no particular order):

The concert marquee banner

Raffle Prize: Dinner and a Double Feature (basket with pasta, sauce, parmesan cheese, a dvd, microwave popcorn, 2 taper candles and candle holders.

The practice cake I made 3 weeks before the party, just to see if I liked the recipe, and if I could work with fondant, which is something I had never done before.

The favor bags. I made the Hello Kitty sticker for the bag. The CD is a sampler disc of Rockabye Baby! Lullaby renditions of rock songs, which was used for one of the games as well. The baby foot cookie cutter was because instead of finger sandwiches, we had baby foot sandwiches (I had cut the bread up with the cookie cutter). The Hello Kitty print out is a t-shirt transfer. The other Hello Kitty in the back there is a "Boo-Boo Hello Kitty", my take off of the "Boo-Boo Bunny". And a little rockstar rubber duckie. Also, attached to the bag is a Hello Kitty Fender guitar pick, attached with a mini clothespin, which ties in because we played a game called Don't Drop the Baby, where the guests each had to hold the "baby" which was a Hello Kitty stuffed animal, hold a cell phone to their ear, and hang as many clothes on a clothesline as they could in 30 seconds.

The diaper cake I made for the Mommy to Be, served as a centerpeice for the refreshments table

The cake

The raffle tickets that you got if you brought a pack of diapers with you. They were also available to buy if you wanted, $1 per ticket, or 10 tickets for $5.

The box for the cake, so the Mommy to Be could take the rest of the cake home with her

Cake pops. These were included in the favor bags as well. Found how to make these on Bakerella. These take a little practice to get just right.

The invitation

And I think that's about it. Well I made the clothes for the Hello Kitty stuffed animal we used in Don't Drop the Baby. But I forgot to take a picture of the Hello Kitty stuffed Animal.

Now that the shower is over, I can get back to my drawing. I think I'm going to take the rest of this week off to relax, and then over the weekend, I will pick my colored pencils back up and get to work!

Another Update on Zebrog

I added in some grass and a little more shading on her body. It's slow going, that's for sure. Pastelbord can take so many layers, and it eats your pencils up so much. But I'm really enjoying working on this one, and I am very happy with how it's turning out. I said that in the last post, didn't I?

I've also been do so much other creative stuff. I wish I could share it all here, but I can't do that until after my friend's baby shower. BUT, I can show you the chocolate I made at the Norman Love class that I took Wednesday night.

Isn't it pretty??? All nice and shiney. And it tastes soooo good. They are filled with Grand Marnier Ganache. They gave us the recipe for the ganache, and a website where we can buy chocolate making supplies. We also got a certificate for completing the class.

The class was a lot of fun. I was glad that my mom found out they were having the classes, because considering my fiance proposed with Norman Love chocolates, I was very interested in taking the class. The chocolates are so delicious. It's technically easy...you paint the mold, fill the mold, you dump it, let the shells set, fill it with your filling, let it set, then ladle chocolate over the whole mold and scrape off the excess, so you have a bottom. Pretty easy. But, MESSY. The instructor did everything so fast and perfect, and clean. lol. But we all got chocolate all over our hands, our molds were dripping with chocolate. Our chocolates were not nearly as perfect as the instructors'. It definately takes practice. We learned that if there is any imperfection in a piece of chocolate, that chocolate cannot be sold, it becomes a sample. I'd venture to guess that A LOT of "samples" were made that night. lol. But we got to take home everything we made, which was really cool. Because if you think about the price of Norman Love chocolate, I'd guess that we probably got to take home about $40 to $50 worth of chocolate. Not including the few pieces we got to sample there. So the class was worth it, in my opinion. He has several different classes you can take, so we want to take another one. But because the class is so expensive, it won't be anytime soon. You can check out his class schedule on his website. They're local classes, I'm not sure if he holds classes in other areas or not. But I suppose you could always call and find out!

Update on Zebrog and Blog Award

Well I got a little of the background started. I'm planning on it being an out of focus green foliage background. This one is really fun to work on, and I'm really happy with how it's turning out. Pastelbord takes a lot of layers, so it's going to need much more work. It's eating my pencils up like crazy.

In the end, I plan to varnish it like Nicole Caulfield does with her pastelbord work, and frame it without glass. This is only the second time I have worked on Pastelbord....the first time was a 5x7, so I wouldn't say I have too much experience with this. Plus, I didn't try varnishing that one, so that will be a first. I hope it works out. But she explained how she does it in the workshop that I took back in February, so I shouldn't have a problem. I hope.

Also, I got another blog award from Lori Talbert at Twin Cedars Drawing Board blog.

Thank you, Lori! I'm supposed to name 7 things about myself that I've never told before. That might be hard to do, so I'm going to take some time to think about that. I will post a blog award thread, where I will fulfill my duty to claim this award, and pass it on to 7 other bloggers.

I'll see you, in the future!! - Doc Brown, Back to the Future
(sorry, my fiance likes to imitate this line, it's stuck in my head because of him. lol.

New Project - Kahlua, the Zebrog!

I've been wanting to do this one for a while, but simply have not had the guts to try it. Zebra's are hard to do, all those stripes get so confusing, I end up erasing so much that I get frustrated and give up. I have attempted to draw zebra's several times, but they never made it past the initial sketch because it just didn't turn out the way I wanted. I have completed one zebra (just the head) and wasn't really that happy with how it turned out. I think I could have done better. So this drawing has just been on my "to draw" list (yes, I do actually have a list, lol) for a while now.

But I just recently saw a piece that Brandy Perez posted on her blog, that has inspired me to finally go for it. I really admire her detail and strive to acheive that kind of detail in my own work. For now, I can only hope that mine will turn out as good as hers. Her little Zemoo is adorable...hopefully my dog will be too.

So here is the first post, I'm sorry the picture is a little dark, I took it at 11pm with my ottlite over to the side. I will try to take the next update in full natural light.

This is 16x20 on sand colored Ampersand Pastelbord. I think it was a little easier doing the stripes on Kahlua, because knowing she didn't have the same shape as a zebra, I wasn't trying to follow them exact. Just as long as it looked zebra-ish. lol. Also, this time I thought to color in the stripes as I drew them, so it was a little less confusing on what was black and what was white. This one is proving to be fun instead of frustrating, so I may end up doing more zebra OR zebrogs if I'm happy with the way this one turns out. My fiance said that I should have drawn her attacking something, so maybe that will be next. I have plenty of pictures of Kahlua attacking random toys and tearing them to shreds, so that could be an idea for a future zebrog. lol.

Jelly Beans!

The other day, while getting some things for my friends baby shower at Michael's, I picked myself up a 12 pencil set of Derwent Coloursofts. Today I decided to test them out on my lunch break. I used an image from this month's colored pencil challenge on Wetcanvas, started it on lunch and then finished it at home. I did use 2 Prismacolors in there, because I couldn't get the right shade of puple or pink for those two jelly beans.

I really like the way the coloursofts go down on my sketch book paper. The Prismacolors and the Polychromos don't go on quite as smooth on the paper in the sketchbook. But the Coloursofts just glide right on. I think I need to get myself a larger set.

The jelly beans were a really good subject to try. The shineyness of the beans, and all the different colors in the shadows were a really good challenge. I'm very happy with how it came out.

Artsy Patriotic Food

Today I went to a birthday party for my friend's 2 year old daughter. The party was to roll over into a 4th of July party. I asked my friend what dish I should bring, and she asked me to bring pinwheels. I had made the pinwheels a few years ago for a get together, and everybody loved them. So when asked to bring them this time, I thought I'd bring them with a twist.


I had to make my own tortillas to get the red and blue, which made it a little more time consuming, but it was worth it.

When I went shopping for the things I needed to make the pinwheels, I saw watermelon and had to get one. I carve pumpkins every Halloween, and the website that I get my patterns from, (Zombie Pumpkins) also has summertime patterns for watermelons. So I thought I'd carve a patriotic watermelon for my friends party too.

Happy 4th of July, everyone :)

Completed Portrait

I apologize for the picture quality. I completed this portrait on Monday night at my grandmother's house, so that my aunt could take it home with her on Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home, and had to take this picture using my mom's camera, in dim lighting. But I suppose it's ok, because I got good pictures of the progress, so you were able to see most of the detail. The cloud in the middle is not nearly as bright as it is in the photo. My aunt was happy with it, and promised to send me a picture of it when she gets it hung on the wall. I look forward to that.

I would like to start my next drawing today, but I'm feeling a little wiped out. I went to cycling class at 8am this morning, and then came home and spent the next 2 1/2 hours mowing the grass, which had gotten a little out of hand since my fiance has been sick for almost 2 weeks. That was a lot of sun, (which I try to avoid) and so I feel really drained. I've been drinking non-stop to rehydrate my body. And I plan to go to the 7pm cycling class too. We only went to the a.m. class to support it so it doesn't come off the schedule. We already told the instructor that we would be back at 7, so now I'll feel guilty if I don't go. I hate disappointing people (even if it's not necessarily that big of a deal).

So watch for the updates on the next project. Should be posting soon. :)

Critiquing Myself

The other day, I received my copy of Ann Kullberg's new book, "Colored Pencil Secrets for Success: How to Critique and Improve Your Paintings".


The reason that I bought this book, is because her book, "Colored Pencil Portraits" is one that really helped me to improve on my portraits. I still pull it out quite often to reference it while I'm working on a portrait. I would say that I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of that book. More than that, though, I got this book because I am always showing my work to my mom, and asking her to critique it for me. Someone else can always see something that you don't see. But, with this book, I hope to be able to learn to critique my own drawings, so that I don't always have to rely on my mom.

So, as a start....using a tip from the book, I have checked my cousin Greg's features and found where I am off.

If you look at all of the lines, you'll see that the red lines line up pretty well. The features seem to be placed correctly across his face. I think I may have his face a bit wide, so I might shave off some of his face on the left side of the drawing.

But take a look at the yellow lines. (You can see better if you click on the picture to view it larger). If you follow the lines across from the drawing to the reference photo (and I actually did this backwards, I should have had the photo on the left and the drawing on the right) you'll see that I have my cousin's eyes up to high. And his nose and his mouth are also placed slightly higher than in the photo.

So now I know what I need to do to correct the likeness of this cousin. I hope to have some time to work on it tomorrow, but we have to help my fiance's family move tomorrow, so I may not. I did, however, take a couple of days off next week, where I will try to catch some things up around the house, and this drawing should get some attention in that time. I'd like to finish it because my aunt is coming into town, and it would be nice for her to see it, and maybe take it home with her if her transportation allows.

On another note....my wedding shoes came in! I ordered them from Famous Footwear (to assure that I would get a nice clean brand spanking new pair that had never been tried on before). Aren't they pretty???

Now back to our regularly scheduled program!

I'm sorry that I took so long to update. I've been crazy busy. But I did a tiny bit of work on the portrait during the week. (Ok, all I did was add clouds, lol). Here is the update:


Now all that is left to do is their likenesses. Aunt Paula, if you're out there....feel free to let me know what you notice that's off, and I can fix it. It's a lot more helpful when other people tell you what they see wrong, than for me to see it myself when the drawing is staring me in the face all the time. I will try to work on this more. I miss my colored pencils. I just wish I had more time!

Anyway, when I took the reference pictures down from the clips, I noticed this:

Do you see it? That distinct line, darker blue on the right, lighter blue on the left? Well, that used to be an even shade of blue. I had the reference picture for my oldest cousin clipped there, and the easel happens to sit close to a window. This is a lightfast issue. Some of the colored pencils are not lightfast, and they fade when exposed to light. You do not want to hang colored pencil artwork in direct light. (Or any artwork, for that matter....)

But I just wanted to show you this as a good example. The portrait faded in just a little over a month. Now, had I not had that picture clipped to the board over the drawing, so that the whole picture faded, the fading would not have been noticeable, but I think it is still something to try and avoid. Luckily, I did plan to add clouds, so it wasn't that big a deal. This time. I will definitely be more careful in the future!

Things are moving along....

Ok....I'm sorry....I still haven't touched my portrait, or worked on any other colored pencil pieces. The most creative thing that I have done, is for my friends baby shower. Here is what I spent the last couple of weeks working on. They will be her invitations.




They'll go together....the ticket and the backstage pass. (The backstage pass is front and back). I'm planning on laminating the backstage pass and adding a lanyard. She is all about music...and she's having a girl and wanted a rockstar themed babyshower....or a Hello Kitty themed baby shower. So I combined the two! Her nickname is Korn Chick, because her favorite band is Korn. So I've dubbed her baby girl, Korn Chicklet. It would have been Korn Chip if she had a boy. lol. A lot of photoshop work went into that "concert ticket". But the backstage pass was pretty easy.

Yesterday I did a trial run of some of the goodies I plan to make for her shower. She got to see them today, and she loved them. But I can't show you those yet, gotta keep some secrets for the guests that might happen upon this blog. lol.

On the other side of things....we are moving along with wedding planning. I booked my venue...so the date is officially set. February 13th. Yay! Also...today we went to the bridal shop to try on bridesmaid dresses....and 3 of my girls have ordered theirs. The 4th girl is in Colorado and needs to get her measurements done and send them to me so we can order her dress. But that's all in the works.

Everything is going great! Here are the dresses we ordered today, picture taken from Alfred Angelo. The color is "eggplant". I also got a swatch so I can match other things to the dresses. Like the ribbons for the ring bearer pillow.


My dress should be in in about 2 more weeks. I can't wait! But I may end up needing to have it taken in, even though it fit me perfectly at the time I bought it. I've lost 3 pounds since I started cycling, and I want to lose 5-8 more. But we'll see.

This is all so exciting!!! Thank you to all my bridesmaids. I hope you all had fun today, and you will all look gorgeous in this dress!

Creative Juices Are Flowing.....

Unfortunately I haven't found much time to work on my portrait as of late.... I'm sorry! I joined a gym and have been going to cycling classes 4 times a week. And the rest of my time is being taken up by wedding planning and baby shower planning.

I went out today to pick up a few things...and ended up spending WAY too much money. But I got MOST of what I need for the creative projects I'm doing for my friend Jeanette's baby shower in August. I won't mention anything now, because I don't want to spill the beans before the party...but she is going to LOVE the party that I'm planning. I've been working on designing her invitations, (which is just digital work in photoshop)...and I'll be making some decorations here pretty soon and just keeping them in a box so that I don't overwhelm myself trying to get everything done at once.

Next weekend, on Sunday, my bridesmaids, my mom and I will be gathering at the bridal store to try on bridesmaid dresses. So on Saturday, I am hoping to find some time to make up some of the treats that I plan to serve at Jeanette's baby shower, and have a little bit of a taste test at the bridal shop. So she will get to see that. But that's all I'm letting her see. lol. If I can pull it off...I know that she will absolutely LOVE them. lol.

So in August...I will post some pictures of all of my creative work...and links to wherever I got the ideas if they came from the internet.

For now....LAST weekend, I did find a bit of time on Saturday to create this flowerpot out of Fimo clay.



It was a &%*$# to make! But I wasn't giving up. And then yesterday, I planted some Golden Shower Tree seeds in it. For those who don't know what Golden Shower Tree is...I didn't name it, so don't ask me. lol. But click this link for Google Images to see what it looks like. Mine of course, won't look anything like that for several years...but hey...part of the fun, (I just learned last week) is starting the seeds. A co-worker got me started on this new kick of wanting to grow everything and anything. lol. We both planted some Tree Wisteria seeds, and they germinated in exactly one week. It was very exciting to watch! I actually can't wait to go back to work on Monday to see how big they got over the weekend. lol.

But anyway, that's all the creativity I've got to show you for this post. But I will try to get back to my portrait soon. I promise!

We'll Be Back After These Messages....

I just wanted to check in real quick. It has been over a week since my last entry and I don't like to let the blog go for too long. Unfortunately, I have not done any work in that time, so I have nothing new to show.

But I do have an update. Sadly....I did not get into the CPSA Exhibition. Poor Mr. Squirrel. I guess it just wasn't his time to shine. But we'll try again in the future.

But, I got an email that the Artist's Magazine 26th Annual Art Competition deadline was extended until today. So this morning, I entered these three in the portrait category.





I wasn't going to enter that competition. I figured the Artist's Magazine encompasses ALL mediums, not just colored pencil. So I felt my chances of winning in that competition was less than my chances of going up against just colored pencil works. But...as Lori from the Twin Cedars Drawing Board blog said in yesterday's blog post..."nothing ventured, nothing gained"....so I decided to enter at the last minute.

The above portraits are of my niece, Abby...my nephew, Eathan...and my co-worker's son, Roman. Wish me luck!

Eyes Are More Than Just Windows to the Soul....

...they are also a pain in the BUTT! lol. So I spent the little bit of time I worked on art last night and tonight just trying to adjust the eyes on my cousin, Greg. His head is tilted, which causes his eyes to be at a diagonal slant, which is a bit tricky to get sometimes. This is where I'm at now...and I can see it still needs adjustment.

I still need to lower the eye on our right, just a bit more. The eye on our left also needs adjustment...I see I've got it too open. After adjusting the eyes, I'll move on to tweeking everything else. And now that I've got it up on the computer, I can see his face looks a bit fatter than it should be. I'll need to slim him down some too. (You can always see things on the computer monitor, that you don't notice when the drawing is right in front of you. It's a strange phenomenon. lol.)

When I took the workshop with Nicole Caulfield in February, she told us that she believes that if you can get the eyebrows right, then you will have the likeness down. I don't remember the exact story of why she believes this, but basically it was because when shown pictures of just the eyebrows of well known celebrities, you could tell who the celebrity was by just the eyebrows, but when shown a picture of the same celebrities without the eyebrows, you couldn't tell. I haven't tested that theory out to myself...it sounds almost unbelievable. But, if that theory holds true, then that could that be why this particular portrait is giving me problems. His eyebrows are covered by his hair. That also would mean that I'll have problems with the cousin in the middle...because you can't see her eyebrows, they're blonde! lol. Just a thought.

So this is where I'm at right now. I think this weekend I might take some time to work on another 5x7 portrait for my portfolio. Just to work on something different. I can usually finish one of those in 3 -4 hours, so if I can find that much time to sit down, I will.

After I finish this portrait of my cousins, the next thing on my plate will be a portrait of my friend Hope and her wife. I was supposed to have it done by their wedding, back in August....but I was not happy with it. So I will be starting over. And we'll compare the two at the end. Oh what fun!! lol.

WIP - almost done!

And we're moving along! I decided to go with blue for the cousins shirt that's on the left. It was black in the reference photo, but black would be too flat, so I decided to go with blue. That is just indigo blue and copenhagen blue...with a layer of orange under the indigo to make it darker. His eyes are bothering me. I think I need to lower the eye on our right...slightly. I'll take another look at it tomorrow...with fresh eyes myself. Maybe hold it up to a mirror.

I don't like how the sky is coming along...I think I need another value in there for more of a subtle gradation. But we're getting there.

WIP ...still going....

Just an update....not too much to say about it. You can see I blocked in their clothing...I made an adjustment to my oldest cousins's face on the right. Other than that, not too much to show. After I took the picture, I added stripes to his shirt, but after that it was too dark to take another picture, so you'll see that in the next update.