An Artist’s Bookshelf

A little corner of our home featuring some of my art books for your perusing pleasure. And yes, I ADORE gnomes!

More Sketchbook Pages

Continuing my sketchpad digging to find pieces I’ve done on top of backgrounds which I pre-painted. I’m leading my art students through watercolors and we’re sticking to backgrounds only so it’s a little less intimidating. 

I incorporated my molotow chrome marker for this floral so you have to compare photos to see how it reflects.  

An Artist’s Sketchbook

This week I’m going through my sketchbooks to find examples for my art students for classes next week. I’m teaching them to paint in a non-intimidating way by painting backgrounds only, upon which we will start drawing next week. 

You can see I obviously painted this background first, likely intending it to be a floral.  I think I drew this pretty lady from a magazine while flying from somewhere to somewhere, but... I really have no idea.  Anyway, here she is.  I thought she was as pretty as a flower, so it fit.

I make a practice of preparing my sketchbookpages with backgrounds of color because I usually just travel with pens.  With the background done, my work is also half done.

Fall Giveaway of Art!

GIVEAWAY?!?! Now that fall is officially here, I will be giving away this acrylic painting! Watch for details. 🍁🍃🍂🍁🍃🍂 

Michelangelo

We’ve been looking at Michelangelo in my art classes.  On the Sistine Chapel ceiling, this is one of the Old Testament prophets that foretold Christ’s coming. Through time we’ve been looking at how symbolism is changing.  Can you look at this picture and guess who the prophet is? 

SPOILER ALERT!  The fish.  Jonah. The interesting thing here is that Michelangelo wasn’t content with just painting a figure.  As in all his work he wanted to create a figure at a particular moment.  An example is his sculpture David - at the very moment he was coiling his muscles and scrutinizing Goliath as he contemplated the kill (vastly different from all sculptures of David that went before.) 

So, Jonah? Can you see here that God’s telling Jonah to go, and Jonah is struggling with ‘No, I don’t want to do that! I... think I’ll run away... I’m going to fight this...’  Every fiber of his being in this painting is struggling with God.  Only got Jonah into, uh, deep trouble, wouldn’t you say?  I guess the moral of the story is - let’s obey God the first time, shall we?

I teach at two locations, The Training Center

www.ttcclasses.com

And HIS Classes (Homeschool Instructional Support Classes)

www.hisclasses.org

These are formal art classes that run through the entire school year for homeschoolers.  Both organizations offer all subjects; I just happen to be the lucky person to teach art.

I also teach super fun, super messy classes in the summertime so let me know if you’re interested.

Steampunk Clockwork Art

Here are four cards from my new Steampunk Clockwork series. These tiny pieces are now on my website and I’ll post a video soon featuring one so you can enjoy its color-changing goodness. These feature the coolest sealing wax embossing I’ve seen.  My previous post shows all 14 - all different and original yet united by theme.

I just posted them on my website; they come in a sealed acrylic envelope for display. 

Here’s the website:

colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

Oh man... aren’t they just so pretty?

I love them!  I hope you do too!

Rock Wall Series Painting

Well, this one sold before I got to show you but I thought you might like to see it anyway.  This is the fourth painting in my Rock Wall series and the fourth to sell in so many days.  I can’t keep up with you guys - who knew?  I guess others love plants as much as I do!  I’ll try to post my next one here tomorrow to give you a chance as well before it sells.

You can find a lot of similarly wonderful color-changing art on my website,

colorcatstudios101.etsy.com