The registration has opened now for the Artist Expo which will be held this summer at the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in The Woodlands.  I went last year and LOVED it - this year will be even better!

I will be teaching two of my favorite classes - metal embossing.  One will be for advanced artists, and the other will be for beginning artists.  There will be many classes running, and the big hall will be filled to the brim with art products of every kind, for sale and being demoed.

You can find all kinds of information at this website: http://www.artistexpohouston.com/

Here's a piece I did of one of my lilies.  With metals, it's easy to get dynamic results, and I think that happened with this one.  Can ya smell it?

Choosing Paintings for Solo Show

At the end of March, I'll be having a solo show at The Woodlands Chamber of Commerce.  Right now I'm in the process of selecting paintings for the show, and matting and framing any that aren't finished.

This one was inspired by the Rangoon Creeper in my back yard.  Having purchased three years ago, it's clambered up our arbor and has become a beauty with fifteen foot tendrils that are holding their own and having some territorial battles with my wisteria.  These stunning pinks are also heavily fragrant - I can almost smell them when I look at this painting.  Because I love my garden and the great outdoors, this is a very happy painting for me.

I will be selling it at the Chamber for $350.00.

'Safe' Painting Chosen for Art League Poster

Bright and bold, even though this nest seems to be floating, I named it 'Safe.'  I particularly like the fascinating way the warm and cool colors flow together, and if you viewed it in person, you would feel the depth and layering that's hard to see on the internet.

The Woodlands Art League is putting out a poster, and I chose this one of mine to be featured, along with other WAL members' paintings. We have a wonderful organization of multi-talented artists, and have a lot of fun together.  If you are interested in purchasing beautiful artwork, setting up commissions or taking a class, check us out!

Here's a link to our website: http://www.woodlandsartleague.org/  Have a look - you'll be glad you did!

Woodlands Sculpture Tour

I booked a couple tours of The Woodlands' sculptures and we had a great time.  Although it was the day of the MARATHON, we thoroughly enjoyed our tour!  Now as I drive around my town, I'll never think of these sculptures again in the same way.  We learned a lot and my life has once again been enriched.  Thanks, Tony Motto, for the great tour!

If anyone else is interested in touring The Woodlands and checking out all of our wonderful sculptures, gather some friends and look up Sculptours at www.woodlandsart.com.  You'll be glad you did!

Sketchpad. Hot girl with Spots

I found this toothy, smiling girl in a magazine in the doctor's office yesterday.  Gary just had back surgery and we were in for a post-surgery check.  The wait was surprisingly short, so I had only maybe five minutes to draw this.

My purse sketchpad is currently probably 6"x8".  Just fits.  Anywhere I go, I sketch quick pictures into it when I find myself waiting for something.  I view my little sketchpads as cookbooks of ideas.  Everything in them is rough, but they're a plethora of ideas, sketches, reminders and notes at my fingertips when I'm casting around for a subject for a serious painting.

Generally, I draw in my purse sketchpads only with pen.  Pitt pens to be exact.  What this means is that there's no erasing, which I also enjoy.  To me, it makes the drawing appear fresher, more immediate and interesting, with more movement and quirkiness.  (Is 'quirkiness' a word? Quirky. Quirkyness - definitely not.  Let's stay with quirkiness.)

This week I was teaching my students about complimentary colors, along with warm colors and cool colors.  I took the florescent, HOT colors along to compliment their cool backgrounds.  They had rollers and stamps and all kinds of texture makers to cover their cool colors.

For a moment in one class I was searching around for something upon which to spread some of this hot stuff, and remembered my smiling girl.  Exactly.  So, what you see here is a finger painted happy person, with textured spots rolled all over her.  Sometimes art is a lot more fun when you just let it flow.

Book Illustrations, Part Five

At this point, I've created my first character, Jeweley, and Jem was hot on her heels.  Knowing that I was going to be painting them over and over, I laid out a page of color notes to eliminate any guesswork. Each time I painted a character, I referred to these notes to make sure I didn't use the wrong color - yikes!

Jeweley ended up being blues and violets - Bombay Violet and Rowney Blue to be specific!  Many of the colors I chose for them were inspired by the books I paged through of jewels.

Below you will find Jem in all his glory.  At this point, we'd hammered out his two body colors, Bombay Turquoise and FW's Emerald Green, but I hadn't hit yet upon his clothing colors.  The orange shirt wasn't working, and he ended up with a white shirt, to which I added blue shadows.

Here I've got his face, hair and skin pretty dark.  In the final book illustrations, I lightened them up quite a bit.  Same as his sister, his legs and arms are faceted, to look like jewels.


So... two out of five characters are now developed!  It was time at this point to paint the first page of the story, Jeweley and Jem looking into their home through the window, wondering what Mom's up to. :)

Book Illustrations, Part 4, Jeweley Revealed

With each picture I drew, we'd go through a process.  The contract stated a sketch and a final for each illustration.  I would do my own preliminary sketches as I was developing the picture, then I'd do a draft and send it to the author, Kimberly Vogel.  Sometimes she would send it to the editor, and they'd work on it together.  Sometimes the editor (thanks, Kitty!) caught things we never even thought of - thank goodness!  Step 1.

Step 2 - she'd make comments and I would put those changes into the final.

Step 3 - Final, in pencil.  If there were no changes to be made, I'd ink it in and paint it.

So, after reading that, you can see that there was an impressive process of back and forths for every picture.

After working together for some time on Jeweley, my first character, I drew this picture.  After choosing the color scheme and coloring parts of her in I leaned back.

There, looking back at me was my girl.  And I knew it.  And so did Kimberly.  We had done it, together.  Very satisfying.