Two Works

My piece, The Way We Were, Coshocton - 1972 did get into the Johnson Humrick House Museum Exhibit.  The opening is October 22, 4-6 P.M. A convenient time for some of my family to be there and we can have dinner afterwards -- looking forward to a good time!  I did change the year in the title from 1971 to 1972 -- I thought about it some more and that is the year it was.

Here is a portrait of Riley, a clipped and wet Portuguese Water Dog, that I finished last month. It was a surprise gift and was well received.  I enjoyed the challenge of the water as something new in this one.

I am having fun but also kept busy with a drawing class I am auditing.   I am working more from life and using other media -- I am enjoying it very much.  I keep alot of my work at the university, but will try to snap some photos for the blog. Also, I will be posting some other commissions soon,also.  After a disappointing Christmas season last year, I have had steady stream of commissions starting in June of this year.  YEAH!

Thanks for stopping by.

Two Dobes WIP -- Christmas Presents



Here are Lokie and Tasha.  Lokie is probably finished, but I will look him over while working on Tasha.  I think something is a little off with Lokie, but I don't have good reference photos of him, but have met him several times.  He had an expressionist quality for a while which I may experement more with.  However, I am aiming for realism for the most part because I do not think the gift recipient will appreciat it otherwise.  I am enjoying working on the sunlit qualities in Tasha's reference photo.  



Lokie - Main Reference









Lokie - Nearly Finished Portrait






















  

































Tasha - Main Reference



Finished Portraits and Kitty Delivery Service

I emailed a copy of the finished portraits last night and they were approved.  Keep in mind they are only 3.5 by 5.5 inches  with custom requests in the compositions.  This is  a size I definitely have not done. I admire those even smaller ACEO artists all the more now.

Great Dane in Historic Home

Great Dane Puppy

I have been busy with tax prep classes and trying to find the seven kitties in the second litter homes.  I did mange to get the mother caught and spayed.  I have only found two of the kittens homes thus far, but I believe they are good homes and both have promised to update me.  I have several other possiblilities with  some no shows and not acceptable homes.  I would like to be able to get my car in the garage before it snows.  Was still doing that with the first litter, but put it outside when these seven began to waunder.

These Orange Tabby Males Are the Sweetest

One of the three Fuzzy Wuzzy Boys

Tortieshell Girl

Cute Tinie  Girl found good home

I have a fair, The Apple Butter Stirr'n Festival next week.  It will be only the second time I have put up my tent myself and the first time on concrete.  I have opted for several "cheap" weight options, though still playing with that. I hope to get there right at set up time so as not to be crowded in my tent set up, do not think there are any voluteers at this one. I am supposed to be dressed somewhat to the period of 1803, have to work on that a little too.  At least set up is the day before, no tear down will be another story. My mom nearby, so I will be staying with her.  I hope to finish the Hawk and start a really good demo before then.

Abbey, Portrait 2, finished

Once again time has gotten away with me.  Here is the second Abbey portrait, finished.  The client is pleased.

I do have another commission to do from the Zanesville fair.  Two very small portraits, 3x6 inches, one with full body and background -- so once again I have my work cut out for me.  I will not be working on these until after the art fair in Kent, Ohio, Art In the Park,  I will be participating in this coming weekend.  The set-up is on Friday and the fair is Saturday and Sunday.  I lucked out with getting a hotel three miles away at $42 a night (EconoLodge), which is good because I am staying until Monday morning.  The show will be having an artist's dinner after closing on Saturday, the first time I have experience such a perk!  I went to undergraduate school at Kent State University, but have not been back there since.  The art festival is in a park near the University.

I have posted a few things, and will post more, on the Prismacolor gallery website.  I currently use mainly Prismacolor pencils.  While browsing there, I saw an artist who uses colored pencils very expressively while portraying animals.  Her name is Maria Spencer and I admire her style, a style very seldom seen with colored pencils.

I will be working on setting up my tent several times this week before going to the show.  I worked on it yesterday, but must become much more efficient.

Feral/garage Kitties Update & WIP

New Garage Kitties

Before I could get the mommy and her three kitties in for their spay/neuter appointment, mommy had SEVEN new kittens.  Six of them can be seen in the photo above, the seventh is an orage tabby.   Not a situation I am happy to be in, but I am determined to get the mommy in before this happens again.  I do have her eating in the unsprung live trap, but as the little kitties are just starting to waunder, it could be difficult to catch her without trapping them.  I will be working on it though.  It is frightning to have only one chance to catch her, if the life trap springs and does not catch her, it is not likely that she will go in it again, they say.

Below are some photos of the first three, now about five months.  All healthy after their spays and neuter.  They are all tame now.

Growing Up Fast - 1 of Original 3

Wild one Now Loving

Only boy of the first three

Below is a work in progress of my redo of one of my commissioned portraits.

Hopefully this will remind the owner of his dog, Abbey.  I got too caught up in doing what I thought he wanted instead of what I could do best on the first one, lesson learned.

Above is the photo of Missy and the finished 9x12, colored pencil portrait. Below is Abbey, WiP. This is the second one I have started with her. I did choose to do her next because I find blac dogs to be the most difficult, also, she has the least clear reference photos. The first one was a cross between a cartoon character and early American Folk Art (which I like, but did not want for her portrait!) I had a couple of photo sessions with another dog as well as new sketches before I started the second one. I am more pleased with it. Abbey is pictured far right below. I also am doing the left two dogs as well as a golden retriever.

The commission calls for dogs being posed in certain ways. All the pictures are going to hang in the same room, so I am thinking of doing the grass and sky pretty much the same for background, though I wish I could go simpler than that, I feel with these full body portraits it would not work out for me to try to do a monotone background. I am trying to balnce wich way the dogs are facing in accrordance with how many portraits there are, i.e. so many facing to the left and so many facing to the right. I like to do straight on of the head, but am going with the best reference shots for the most part.

Feeling at turns, frustrated, scared, happy, stupid, lucky. Time to get to work, I will post what I have gotten done early tomorrow morning.

Blue Eyes

Here is one of the commissions I did for Christmas. The large dog is a German Shepherd-Huskie mix. Aren't those blue eyes intriguing! I used three different photos to make this composition of two dogs. It is 12x9 inches, colored pencil on Ampersand pastel board. I heard from the client that the gift was very well received. When asked how I could improve my services, the client replied only that I should keep doing my art because he considered me so talented. A very nice comment. Very rewarding experience all around -- the doing and the happiness of the customer! This customer (a couple who gave the commission as a present to their son and daughter-in-law) saw me a the art festival in Zanesville that I did this summer.

I have been going to work at my job this week -- in between has been taken up by trying to catch up on neglected house work and seeing my mom. So thus far I have not done great in the New Year on some of my goals. But I will follow Mona Majorowicz's example of having faith that putting my intentions out into the universe will help lead me in the right direction.

Hope you are all having a great New Year. Thanks for stopping by, Angela

Artistic Style Part IV - Some Inspiring Realism

"Cute White Kitten" 12x9 inches, colored pencil on colorfix, $135 unframed, $165 matted and framed with plexiglass.

Giclee Reproductions also Available. Contact me.

In thinking about why I am currently working realistically, I will say the primary reason is choosing to depict animals and very much enjoying the connection with others that comes from a pet portrait commission. I do not seek to be what I consider to be "photo-realistic". I am motivated to bring the animal to life within the best of my capabilities without going down to such a minute/detailed level. Though intrigued by colored pencil when coming back to art, I was at first relunctant to try it because it seemed to be too "meticulous". I feel I currently work somewhere between how a soft pastelist works and traditional colored pencil techniques with my work. I was also taught that an artist needs to be able to do realism before finding/looking for another voice. That is, one must build an ability in speaking one language before attempting to translate that language into another. Or an artist should have ability with the basic tools and concepts and what has gone before in order to develop further in other artistic ways.

I never was extremely fond of the "photo-realism" which (pre-computers) copied a photograph in a very large format by using the squares or pixels. I did look at this art with a type of fasination at times, however. I just find some of these methods too miopic -- I don't feel I could get in a "zone" using them so exhaustively. However I am wondering if some of the works I currently admire wouldn't be considered more "photorelaistic" than "realistic" in style? I would like to know your opinion regarding this question. Here are some links to some contemporary realistic animal art that gave me chills when I first gazed upon them: a horse portrait on Wet Canvas by Linda Jonsson of Sweden,

Pastel Goat by Nutty at the Pet Portrait and Wildlife Forum, Haflinger Portrait-"Nuss" by Sabine Lackner, also at the Pet Portrait and Wildlife Forum,

and last but, certainly not least, all of the work by Melanie Phillips.

I am currently intrigued with "the bringing to life" aspect of realism. It is an enthralling challenge for me to try to get it right. I am experimenting on developing facility with colored pencil techniques as I do this. I am most in the zone when using hand and eye coordination to develop the work as a whole. I think I am in one of those repitious circles of life by improving my work in the basics and going from there in whatever develops.

Ruby and Roscoe Finished

Here is the finished portrait of Ruby and Roscoe, which I delivered to my brother on Sunday. He and his wife were quite pleased, I am happy to say.

I enjoyed displaying and doing a demo in Roscoe village on Saturday -- there is supposed to be a blog post at some point on the Historic Roscoe Village site about me being there, I will provide a link if this materalizes. Crowds were reported to be low because of the Ohio State University football game that day. I did make some nice connections with shopkeepers and encouragement to return during the Apple Butter Festival in October. I also had several promises from viewers to be in touch about a commission.

Two of my pieces are currently appearing in an Animal Picture Show at the Ultrecht art supply store in Columbus.

Three of my pieces have been accepted at the Bryn Du Colors of Joy Art Show in Granville, Ohio. The opening is September 30, 2009.

Hope you all had a great weekend. I rested some yesterday. I plan to write a post about style later this week.

Cat Pet Portrait Commission

I finished this pet portrait of a cat a little while ago. I had not posted it here or to my website yet because it was a birthday gift and was not being given until this past Friday. Though I doubted it would be seen if I posted it, I wanted to error on the cautious side.

This is a portrait of a cat named Sanders who recently went over the Rainbow Bridge. My photo is just a tad blurry compared to the original. This commission was created as a composite of two photos. I got an email on Friday showing photos of the gift being opened. The recipient looked very touched. It is very touching to me that her boyfriend put the thought and effort he did into having this gift created. The commissioner was very happy when I delivered it to him. Which was a fun experience for me.

This portrait is 12 by 9 inches, colored pencil on colorfix paper.

I have another cat commission which I am happy to work on this week.

My website has details on how to commission a pet portrait.