Here’s a bit on the process for the Autumn Green Man. After discussing the project via email, I did up a bunch thumbnails. The client got to see these two which I thought solved the challenge in a way closest to what we discussed. Then I did a tighter...
Jan282015
Autumn Green Man Process
Jan142015
Calendar Giveaway
Vote for your favorite image from Llewellyn’s 2015 Astrological Calendar and send me your name for a chance to win a copy of the calendar. I created the images for Llewellyn’s 2015 Astrological Calendar. It’s now all out in the wild and it’s time to celebrate. How it works...
Nov262014
Work in Progress – Greenman
Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s a little sneak peek at what’s on my drawing board.
Aug62014
Hands Study on Newsprint
We just finished up the portrait class I was teaching on Tuesday nights (thanks for posing Anna!). During the 10 weeks of the class I was able to do some head and hand studies. (Side note: If you’re wondering, part-time/evening classes start again the week of September 14th.) Anna’s...
May142014
Practice vs. Perfection
Flash back to art school. I had drawn before so why couldn’t I make “this” work? “This” was whatever skill or project I was working on at the time. All I had to do was draw what I saw. It was right there in front of me, right? Easy...
Mar262014
Sketchbook Smear Relief and Some Doctor Who Fan Art
I wanted practice drawing people. What better way than to combine learning with fan art of Doctor Who? In the past when I’ve kept a sketch book the pencil would rub off on the adjacent page. This has always frustrated me. Capturing a likeness can be frustrating, why compound...
Feb272014
Portrait Study – Russian Sauce
I teach a portrait class Tuesday evenings so when I’m not helping students, I’m helping myself by working on this head study. This was a great opportunity to experiment with Yarka Russian Sauce. What fun! I love the darks I’m getting. This all started with my interest in Valentin...
Jan292014
Posthumous Portrait
As a present for my husband, I painted a posthumous portrait of his mother. Kinda tricky. I had to work from photos, and my memories and impressions of her. Step 1 Transfer the photo reference as a line drawing/tracing to the canvas and start painting. I thought this would...
Jan292014
Experiment: Camera Lucida
So a couple guys did a Kickstarter. They created a modern version of the camera lucida: the NeoLucida. I was curious so I chipped in. Backstory David Hockney, in his book “Secret Knowledge,” proposed that many of the old masters used optics as they came available. This ruffled some...
Dec312013
Portrait Practice
I’ve been studying Valentin Serov’s portraits. He was a Russian artist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I love his dancing, searching line mixed in with bold marks and wanted to experiment with that. A few Saturdays ago I had some extra time and got to attend the...