Mr and Mrs Smith: Part 1

An old coworker of mine, last name is Smith, has two little dachshund hounds. Here is the start of their painting:

I like the slight awkwardness of the the composition. I am thinking that I shall paint their noses and toe nails pink (my coworker is super into pink). Do you think Mr Smith would be upset if his toe nails were pink?

Just Because...

The other day I babysat my nieces for a couple of hours. When their dad got home, Tia (me) was no longer a thing of any worth and they all started fighting over lap space. Crying ensued:

Small Paintings: Red Eyed Frog Final

May the Fourth be with You!

Oh my poor husband, how he does humor me. Also, I could use a haircut. 

Today was a good painting day. I listened to more than my fair share of Debussy, which really helped me to keep my head in the game. At times I will start to over think what I am doing, how I am doing it,  and then I will start hearing the voices of nay sayers (not actual voices, just, well you know). This was part of my problem last week. I kept hearing one professor over and over again in my head, and in the end I did not paint well. But not today buck-o, thank you Debussy! Also, today is STAR WARS day! YAY! As well as my best friend's, Buddy, birthday, which makes it a doubly awesome day. (Shout out to Buddy!) 

Today I finished a painting that was started pre-cousin, but was never finished. Here is the final as well as the progress images: 

He is just a small, 5"x7" painting, but still not to bad, I am happy to have another finished painting under my belt. 

The Bear: Part 2, another failure

Well, needless to say, this week was not my best week. I have struggled with the right colors, the right look, the right way to paint...it has not been awesome. Another case in point, Mrs Bear:

Much like the pronghorn, I painted and I wiped and I painted and I wiped over and over and over again. I decided to throw out the fish circle thing and add silver leaf orbs (like the pronghorn) and then the water splashes were also going to be silver. Sheesh, at least the eyes are kind of cool:

Not that you can tell the bear even has eyes in the images above, it all just kind of blends and is blah and more blah and then even more blah. Also, she kind of looks like she is going to rip your head off, am I right? Maybe I should tone that down a little bit.

Unlike the pronghorn I am not going to start over, instead I am going to put it aside for a bit. Maybe work on the salmon off and on, but then come back to the bear later.

Mr T: Semi Final

Mr. T is giving me heart burn, well not really, but it is fun to say so. I have repainted his bow tie five times now, this may be the sixth, and I am still not happy with it. However, I have decided to leave it for the time being, and so I bring you Mr. T's semi-final image:

After painting the circle around Mr. T my first thought was, "Why, hello Mr. Rockwell."

Growing up I loved Norman Rockwell's paintings. My grandfather read the Saturday Evening Post and kept a solid amount of them with Rockwell's covers. Even now I think that Rockwell is really great, and I guess that it must be the circular motif that reminds me of him (Rockwell used circles a lot, especially for the Post covers). There are worse things for sure. Here is the complete progress for Mr. T:

Chuck Norris: Final

Mr Chuck is done. Initially I wanted to paint him with a dark background, but then got nervous about him blending into the background too much/the pink eye patch popping out too much and wimped out. However, I kept going back to having a dark background and finally just jumped in. I like it.

Here is the final Chuck followed by his progress images (I took a lot of photos of him): 

Pronghorn: Part 1, a failure

Did you know that pronghorns are awesome? It is true, they are. They are not antelope, they are the last surviving member of the Antilocapridae family, which means they are ancient, and lovely. They can run at about 55 mph, second only to the cheetah, but they can run at top speeds for a longer period of time than the cheetah. It is thought that they evolved to run so fast due to the now extinct American cheetah, yep it existed.

I love them. They seem other worldly to me, and so I have decided to paint one... it has not gone so well.

I made a photoshop idea thing, then started painting (the circles were going to be in silver leaf, it was going to be cool...maybe). I painted and painted and then wiped parts away, and then painted some more, and then wiped it all away. I think part of the problem was the image I was using was too pixelated. Another big problem is that I was trying to finish this one with a major time crunch. Whenever I try to get something done in a matter of days, I tend to crash and burn and get depressed, awesome.

So I have decided to start over, I found a new image, not as pretty as the first but close, and now I have a new drawing:

I may have gone a little overboard on the hairs. Like a lot overboard. It is no small secret that I rely heavily upon my underdrawings, but I may have taken this one too far. We shall see.

ps. Pronghorns all have a little Alfalfa tuft of hair on top of their heads, and it is adorable.