Marie in the Meadow, WIP

Marie in the Meadow, WIP

It's taken a long time, but I've discovered a horrible truth about myself: I shouldn't buy nice things, because I'll never use them.  Case in point, gorgeous gallery wrapped canvas.  I have several of these lying around my office, all languishing with backgrounds for paintings that will never be completed.  Why?  Because when the canvas is so nice then the painting must be too, and I find that creating anything with such a high standard to begin with is impossible.  So I never start.  Thus I haven't painted anything that one could actually call a proper painting since college.  In a painting class. 

So I was at JoAnn Fabrics, looking at the canvases and thinking, 'Oh, wouldn't it be nice and calming to paint something?  Wouldn't that be great?  Then you could hang it on the wall if you like it, or hock it on etsy if you don't... Yeah, that sounds awesome.  Hm, what should I get?'  I was drawn to the gallery wrapped stuff, of course, because it's the BEST, but then I thought about it and realized that it would collect dust, looking lovely and full of potential...  But in the end, a waste of money and depressing.  Instead I got a two for one deal that's got the staples showing on the sides.  UGLY.  But look!  I painted something on it.  And it's pretty great so far!

I took pictures of some of the details with the camera on my phone, so they're crap, but you get the idea.

The painting is based off a still from the movie Marie Antoinette, with Marie and three of her gal pals sitting in a meadow.  They're all wearing gorgeous dresses and hats, and it seemed like a fun thing to paint.

It's been fun so far.  I'm trying to be very painterly with this, as my former painting teacher always complained that I was painting like I was drawing, and that's really not the way to go about it.  I did the trees in the background yesterday, and the faces today.  I'll start on the hats this weekend, and maybe block in the dresses.

Unfortunately, my brain was stupid and I decided to use acrylics instead of oils, so painting the faces has been a trickier process than I would have liked.  Acrylics don't blend like oils, because they dry out too quickly for that, so I've made the same skin color three times and tried to recreate shadow colors a dozen more.  But Marie's face turned out lovely, and since the other girl has the excuse of wearing a hat I don't have to fret too much over the excess of shadow around her eye.

Marie in the Meadow, acrylics on canvas.  Work in progress as of November, 2010.

Novelist : WIP

Novelist : WIP

I've been working on three pieces to submit to iStockPhoto to be approved to sell stock there.  I didn't really have anything 'portfolio' worthy to submit, so I started this dude.  He's not only totally vector based, he's also an homage to National Novel Writing Month.  That frown, that wild hair, the tired eyes, that annoyed curl of his mouth, the mug of coffee, that finger poised over the delete key?  Yeah, it's so NaNo.  But it can also work as harried office worker, so there you go.  Stock.

He's not done.  He needs shadows in his shirt (which I can't wrap my mind around, and is stalling the hell out of this project), and a chair and some other things.  This is actually an older version of what I'll eventually submit - I changed the solids to gradients on nearly everything - but I really like it so far.  His face is so angular, which is different for me since I tend to make people more curvy, but this guy was crying out for a jutting brow bone and that nose.  And somehow it all works.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, be there or be square.  My ambitious YA Fantasy Epic?  Yeah, it's so on.

Snow Queen : Finished!

Snow Queen

All done!  I decided not to do anything crazy with the background, because I didn't want anything to detract from her face.  So there's a blizzard going on back there.

I sharpened up her hair and lashes, then stamped the whole mess, hit gaussian blur and set it to multiply to play up the shadows, and then put a Hue/Sat adjustment layer over it with the preset Old Style.  It gives it a nice de-saturated look, and makes the whole thing look like winter.

Snow Queen : WIP II

Snow Queen : WIP II

Today the Snow Queen got her icicle tiara, frosty cheeks, and a neck full of feathers.  (Does it look like feathers?  I fear it looks a lot like fur.  I think the feathers need spines, and maybe to look fuzzier.)

Those icicles were tricky, but not as tricky as I thought they'd be.  First I sketched out with a very fine brush where I thought the base of each of the icicles would sit, then a series of similar circles to the tips.  After that it was a mess of painting and blurring with the blur brush.  At the end I went back to the fine point brush and lightly lined the left hand side of each 'cicle.  I'm not entirely sold on the white fluff at the base of the tiara.  It's meant to be snow, but I don't think it comes across well.

I'm going to need to go over her hair and eyelashes again to sharpen them up.  The tiara is too sharp to leave them as they are now.  They don't match each other.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the background yet.  I've been flipping between having a darker one and this pale one.  I like the drama with the dark, but I also really like how pale and icy this one can get with a aqua gradient map overlay.  I've got a ton of snowflake doodles that I've never used sitting on my computer, so I'll probably fill the BG with them.  Ooh, or maybe some kind of art nouveau frame!  I've been looking for an excuse to try my hand at that...

I'm so happy with how this is turning out.  She's so pretty!

Snow Queen : WIP

I've been working on Christmas cards this week, and this face is the start of what will be the Snow Queen.  I was thinking Narnia, but darker and more dramatic.

I'm going to give her an icicle crown and some kind of neck thing - I'm torn between feathers, fur, or an Elizabethan collar with diamonds.  I've been working on the collar idea for the past couple of hours though, and it's not turning out how I'd hoped.  Feathers could be fun to paint.

In painting this, I finally figured out the secret to digitally painting skin!  You throw down some color, hit Gaussian Blur until you get something you like, then rinse and repeat ad nauseam.  But it works!  I did the same thing with her hair. 

Why is her hair blue, you ask?  Well, in my head she was going to be white blonde, but then I realized I'd done her eyebrows and lashes in black, so I'd committed to a dark color without realizing.  Hence, blue.  She's a Snow Queen, after all.  She can get away with that.

Carnival Ticket Wedding Invitations & RSVP Cards

Carnival Ticket Wedding Invitations

New invitations!  More to the point, carnival ticket themed wedding invitations!

A Bride-to-Be asked me for carnival themed invitations about a month ago, and I wasn't able to get to them at the time - so busy!  But here they are, because they were on my List and I was able to bang them out in a couple of days.  These aren't exactly what Miss Bride wanted (she wanted stripes), so look for a second version coming soon, because stripes are always a fun idea.

Zazzle has a distressing lack of carnival/circus-y fonts, so I had to make due with this simple one.  I think it might look just as good.  More ticket-y.  (But, you know, if you were to buy these far into the future when such a font is available, please put the bride and groom's names and the date of the wedding in that circus font.  Trust me.)

High Points:

• The elephants at the top form a little heart with their trunks.  Adorable!
• The raffle ticket number at the bottom is also the date of the wedding in number form.  Clever!
• Is is possible to be invited to 'crash' a wedding?  Doesn't one cancel the other out?  Intriguing questions.
• These are Pick Your Own Background Color.  So you don't have to have a hot pink wedding if you don't want to.  Though, why wouldn't you?

This invitation set includes 5x7 invites, reply cards, save the date postcard, and thank you notes.

Steampunk Air Ship Mechanic Sketch

Steampunk Air Ship Mechanic

I doodled this on my iPad last night.  (The iPad is the best sketchbook ever).  I'm going to make a manly steampunk pin-up.  There just aren't enough pin-ups of hot guys in the world.

This guy is the mechanic for a steam powered air ship, hence the giant wrench and goggles.  He'll need more hardware to look steampunk-y, and maybe a shirt.  Or maybe just suspenders.  I'm undecided.

No, no shirt.  Pin-ups of the girly variety are all about the legs, so when it's a guy I think it's probably all about the arms/chest.  Though, look at this guys thighs!  They're huge!

The background of this, I'm thinking, is going to be a pain.  I want a sort of docking station of air ships in the background.  I'm still trying to figure out what it would look like. 

Oh, fi sci.  I do love you so, though you make me bend my brain.