drawings & paintings

I have to admit, I just recently started drawing and painting regularly again after a long dry spell. Sometimes I get tired of it... No, not tired of it but rather uninspired. After my second attempt at college, I kind of hated art. I don't regret going but I don't regret dropping out either. Art school killed my creativity for some reason. However, it also enhanced my skills, taught me painting trickery, and gave me a new media to work with that I otherwise wouldn't have ever tried. <3 gouache <3 Here are a few examples of stuff I've done in the past few years. It's a depressingly small of number pieces. I've really been wanting to get prints of most of these so I can sell them on my etsy shop and get the word out that I can do custom illustrations. Sigh. I don't really want screenprints of them because I want to be able to sell them at a relatively low price. I'm tragically ignorant on getting good quality prints made commercially. Well, here we go.

 

I did this drawing for my husband's now disbanded band, Dear Human, a few years ago. It was used as cover art for a CD they released which I am so very proud of. It was my first time in a long time to do such a big pen drawing. I think I had only really done so in the past when in drawing classes. Working with pen makes me so nervous but I kind of like it when I have different sized Micron pens to use. I wanted to try digitally painting it but that shit seriously confuses me and I have come to realize that I kind of suck at technology. SAD. This is one that I would love to get prints of and I would even consider doing some screenprints of, but I don't have a screen anymore anyway.

Why did these two pictures not go in the center? What did I do wrong? Told you I suck at technology. So I was sitting around one day when I had just moved to Denton and reunited with my best friend Brittney. I didn't have a job yet and thus got pretty bored throughout the day. I had been crafting a lot but decided I wanted to do another pen drawing. I started sketching and drew a pretty nice looking beak. Onto this beak I added a chicken and beside that chicken went another chicken and before I knew it, I was looking at Brittney and I as chickens. Obviously I'm the chicken on the left.

Brittney's mom has a pack of beautiful dogs. Two whippets and two small Italian greyhounds. My personal favorite is Claire the whippet. Though I depicted her as reserved and graceful in this painting, she's actually rather hyper and a little dopey at times. She also likes to rear up on you which is pretty painful. I left the claws out of the illustration. There are some flaws in the paint on the background walls but other than that, I love the way Claire turned out. Also, if you can't tell yet, I really love playing with wood grain in illustrations. 

BUNNY! I don't know, I love cute animals. I just wanted to draw a sweet, innocent, shy little bunny sitting in a field of billowy grass and dandelions. Unfortunately, this original is damaged. I had it at a craft show, framed and sitting on my table, when it got knocked over and off. Glass went everywhere and made a little cut or two on the background where it's flat green. I was all :_: because it was my first craft show and I was already nervous. Oh, hey, I'm the embarrassing one who destroys part of her display before the show even starts. I don't really like selling originals that I do for my own pleasure anyway. ^^^Reason I will never make much of money off of paintings.

 

Once again, months passed without me doing much as far as drawing is concerned. Then I started sketching again. I decided on three paintings I wanted to get done out of these sketches. My dog, Golly, being the first and most important one. I have a tattoo of Golly as a samurai on my leg but I had never paid tribute by drawing him myself. So he became a pirate. Then there's a basset hound who's looking at a pocket watch. (I actually recycled, with a few adjustments, a body that I had originally meant for the Dear Human drawing from earlier.)And finally a tabby cat who ended up looking like some kind of dangerous gypsy pirate guy.

Pirate Golly

It took me a while to finish this because I was being lazy. I tried some new techniques that I kind of made up on the fly and in one case because I dropped a paintbrush saturated with an orange from the background onto an already painted Golly. After immediately bursting into tears, I decided to try to fix it because there was no way it could have gotten worse. Everything worked out and I took a lot away from that experience. Doesn't he look great as a pirate? I had a lot of fun painting this other than when I dropped that brush. I wish I hadn't painted all the way to the edge though... Not sure why I did that. I left no room for matting. Well I posted Golly on my facebook and that led me to THIS-

Brutus before framing

Framed Brutus and Brian

You know those people you're friends with on facebook who attended the same high school as you but you never really knew? I went to a small school so most people knew each other to some extent and lots of people that graduated within a few years of me, before and after, have found me on fbook. One such person ended up being a great connection. At one of the first art shows I was in, I sold a painting to this particular guy's mom which is just something I'm adding in because I think it's cool that they've both bought stuff from me. Anyway, Michael saw Pirate Golly and wanted to commission me to do a painting of his dog Brutus for an anniversary present to his beau Brian. I was thrilled! He gave me freedom to do whatever I wanted with Brutus' appearance and surroundings. I looked at pictures of Brutus and immediately pictured him as a contemplating professor in his study. I used some of the techniques I accidentally came up with during Pirate Golly, but on purpose this time, and loved the outcome. Then Michael asked me to go ahead and frame it, so I found that heavy, distinguished looking frame and did the damn thing. BTW framing is kind of hard when you don't have all the appropriate tools. Nevertheless, it got done and a week or so later Michael said he had a friend that wanted to commission me to paint her dogs :) I'm working on that one now and hope to be finished in about a week and a half. I also have two other commissions for friends of kitties that I'm going to be doing after this one is finished. Lots to keep me busy.