Blue Kitten: Part...? Starting over

Yep, totally starting over on the kitten. I fixed somethings that were really bothering me about the composition, and tomorrow I should have something.

Blue Kitten: Part 3

A very blue kitten 3 hours in:

I know what you are thinking, "Sure hope it doesn't stay like this." Don't worry, I am also hoping the same thing. :) 

Dear John: Stargazer Lilly final

Lilly painting finished:

A little bit of glare again, and the color is also just slightly off, however, it is probably the truest photo I have taken of the lilly yet. I will have to consult my photography doing sister on how to improve. 

Here is a detail: 

As you can see I added the dots, but ever so slightly. I feel like they look slightly noncommittal, but I figured I would rather go for subtle than bold and hate it. I think I like noncommittal. 

Here is the complete progression of the lilly, about 17 hours in total: 

Now I just have to wait for it to dry and then ship it out. I hope she likes it. 

Dear John: Stargazer Lilly part 5

Here it is after another 45 mins or so:

I need to figure out some place to photograph my paintings in order to eliminate glare, however until that happens... yay glare! I probably should also stop being so lazy and stop taking these photos with my phone, but it is just so damn convenient. 

Here is the lilly with the background finished, the bud toned down, the leaves finished (I was originally going to put more detail into the leaves, but in the end decided against it, wanting the flower to focus one's attention), which means that the painting is almost finished, but there is just one problem...I am a coward. 

It is time, finally to add the little spikes of color, but I am nervous to do it. Being nervous like this is a problem I have had since I was about seven or eight years old. I would draw something in pencil and then be terrified that I would ruin it when I added color. Not that it would be ruined by color, but that I would ruin it by being an awful colorer. 

I remember one summer being particularly frustrated by this because of my older sister's art works. I was probably around ten or eleven and I was visiting my dad for the summer, as per usual; but this particular summer my second oldest sister (who is six years older than me) had started to live with my dad several months before we (the twins and I) arrived. 

In her bedroom she had arranged along a wall drawings she had made, mostly of disney characters, and they were all finished in colored pencil. I had been staring in awe at these things for weeks. I remember one day being up in her room drawing, a couple of kittens, on the floor. When the pencil drawing was done I was so nervous to color the kittens in, because, of course, the drawing was super great. I asked my sister if she was ever nervous to color in her drawings. CG looked down from her bed at me confused and responded with a, "No, of course not." 

Sigh...if only. Maybe I will wait the two weeks I had originally thought I would need to wait for it to dry.

      

My goals for the rest of 2014

This morning I spent a good amount of time thinking about applying to galleries and getting into shows, etc. All good things, but after doing a lot of web searching and getting very overwhelmed, I decided to slow down and figure out what steps I need to take in order to get to the point of showing in a gallery. I created a type of self-contract through the rest of the year. I hope to accomplish the following with my contract: one, get a solid body of work produced that I can truly call me, and two get my pet portrait website up and running. The contract is as follows:    

Oct - Nov: Complete 10 paintings to get my pet portrait thing up and off the ground a little bit. Here are my ideas:

1. Zirker painting - Cat 
2. Griffin painting - Fish 
3. Siebach painting - Dog 
4. Smith painting - Dog
5. Autumn - Cat  
6. Gershwin - Cat 
7. Sebastian or Tink - Cat 
8. Tungate painting - Dog 
9. Raynes painting - Hedgehog 
10. Thacker painting - Snake

That will make 3 dog, 4 cat, and 3 others. 

Dec- Jan: Complete a painting for the Hogle Zoo Art competition, due Jan. 19th. Work on two additional paintings of dogs. 

Side Project for Oct - Dec: 2 t-shirt designs

1. Twin Geeks
2. Other

I feel that this is a solid plan for the rest of the year. Let's see how much of it I actually get done. I really want to start pushing myself. 

Blue Kitten: Part 2

Kitten drawing update:

I like the flowers more, however, now it looks like he is sitting in a bunch of weeds. I may erase something. The goal is to start painting this one tomorrow. 

Blue Kitten and Twin Geeks

The past two days I have not done any painting. For a couple of reasons: one, in order to add the final touches to the stargazer lilly, I want it to dry for about two weeks; two, I have been gathering materials for my next two projects.

Project 1: a painting for one of my best friend's, ixoj, mom. Last year ixoj's mom's cancer ended up coming back. Mom had been in remission for about ten years I believe, and to top it off, mom's favorite cat died.

Ixoj's mom is once again cancer free, after a lot of not so fun cancer related stuff, and I was supposed to get this painting to her...oh about a year ago? Which makes me a poopy, terrible person. However, in my defense I have painted this cat three times now. Two oils, and one watercolor and none of them have been, well, good.

However, I hope that the fourth times a charm? Here is the drawing that I have so far for it:

I have learned a couple of things from trying to paint this cat so many times. One is that I am horrible at drawing cats, horrible. This is sad for me, considering how much I super love cats. Another is that, well no that is it, I suck balls at drawing/painting cats, particularly white cats. 

Example of poopiness: there is something wrong with the cat's mouth. An angle is off somewhere else in the face that is making the dots not quiet connect in my brian, but I have redrawn this thing too many times, so I guess the mouth stays. (frown)

My friend asked for the painting to have a lot of blue in it, because her mom super loves blue. The flowers I added around the cat are blue columbines. These flowers are actually very small, but I think they look nice enlarged, except for the flowers in front. They are larger than the others, which gives the image a little bit of perspective, I hope...? But I think that they may be too big. I am going to erase them and figure something else out. 

Project 2: a T-shirt design I have titled Twin Geeks. Only one twin posed for this photo op, but I mean, really, do I need both? I think not. The top girl is going to be Zelda and the bottom girl is going to be Leah. I hope this works, because if it does, it is going to be awesome.