the cows, revisited

If you read my post from yesterday you know that I'm working on a cow painting, and you know that I'm using Cotman paper. As I said the paper doesn't really hold the paint well and I usually resort to prismacolors making it more of a mixed media piece. Anyway, I finished the painting part last night. As you can see, the grass is kinda streaky. And I wasn't able to get any darker on those cows. It would have smudged up everywhere. I'll post the final product after the pencil.

A January weekend come and gone.....

Wasn't too creative until Sunday and started a painting of cows. I am not using my usual 140 cold press paper because I do have a ream of the "cotman" paper as well. Back when I used to work for an art supply mail order catalog, we were cleaning out the warehouse because we were moving locations. By this time the company hadn't really been selling much fine art supplies but focused more on being an airbrush supply company. Fortunately for me, he asked if I wanted to take the watercolor paper home. FREE! Of course I jumped on this and scored about 10 reams of Arches 140lb cold press paper... can you say, "SCORE!" ? and in there was also a ream of the Cotman paper.

Now, I totally prefer the Arches 140lb coldpress above the Cotman. It holds the paint, dries quickly and have mastered the technique of painting dark to light for the first layer, and then going back and layering more color where I need to. Cotman tends not to hold the paint as well, so it's almost like I paint once and can't really go back because if I did, the paint just smears. However, by knowing this already (through trial and error) I tend to make these more of a mixed media piece relying on my prismacolors to come and save the day.

These are some examples of my work done on Cotman

So we'll see how the cows come out.

Pictures and Paintings

I'm still trying to figure out how to place type & images in my blog so please forgive me if this looks like a mess. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.




























This is Lou, a black lab. Nikki is a repeat customer who commissioned a pet portrait years ago of her dog Bocca. Now, she and her boyfriend own Lou and she asked for a portrait to give to her boyfriend for Christmas. She later said when she received it she couldn't wait for Christmas to come and gave it to him right away. Thanks Nikki!!
































These cute pups were for another Christmas gift. Susie was the winner of a gift certificate of mine that she won at the Scituate Animal Shelter fundraiser back in 2008. She emailed me this picture of her parents dogs and wanted to get a painting done. She later emailed me after Christmas telling me that her parents loved it and now her sister wants one. Thanks Susie!!










My sister emailed me yesterday with an image of her friends dog. Apparently he recently passed away and she wanted to have a portrait done of him for his owner. What a great way to remember a best friend. Thanks Sal!





have a great weekend!

Jan 20, 2009

Well, slightly inspired by the MA senate race, and what started as a self portrait, ended up looking more like Kathy Bates or Big Brother LOL! I did this in the bathroom as it is the only mirror that we have in the house. And I was standing the whole time. For a while it did really look like me, but then I went excesive on the shadow under the nose and then before you knew it, I had a mustache LOL. Anyway, here it is.

Here's Jaxston! This is a painting that I finished last night for a client and here you can see the painting with the photo!

I love how his head ended up in the clouds in the painting. What was supposed to be a blue wash background ended up being creative sky. What happened was that I was painting and didn't realize that there was a hair in the paint brush that ended up on the paper. I tried to pick it up with my fingernails, but couldn't. Grabbed a papertowel and managed to get it that way but ended up with a cloud-like splotch on the paper. Owell, might as well make them all clouds. But I really pushed the clouds by going back in with colored pencil and creating some edging to them. I'm happy with the way it turned out and I hope the client is as well.

Weekend wasn't as creative as I had hoped

But it was productive!!





Friday night J, S & I went to Mission of Burma at the Paradise in Boston. It was a lot of fun, but someone shusshed me as I was showing my appreciation for a fine performance. WTF? I know I'm loud, but um.... I'm at a concert!





Saturday J & I went out to Chester to help cut and gather firewood for the upcoming winter months. Unfortunately, the chain saws were being fickle and didn't want to work, or that one was too dull, so we didn't get as much done as we wanted to. We were able to get some wood that was cut by J's brother M, and put it in the garage to dry out. Nothing makes you feel more butch then working with Men and Wood LOL.





Sunday J worked on more wood gathering and I moved all the patio furniture off the deck and inside the house. We then went ice fishing for the afternoon at a pond in Beckett (?). J got one run, but it was dropped. He believes it was a bass. The day was so gray but beautiful at the same time. We had a storm coming and it smelled like it was going to snow. It started just around 4:20pm at then we packed up and headed home. I did take a couple of photos, with the phone and the camera.

The photo here is of the pond at about 3 in the afternoon.

Happy Friday

Yesterday I went to buy my George Clinton & the P Funk Allstar tickets at the Orpheum box office during my lunch hour. I can't get over that LiveNation wants to charge me a handling fee of $12 per ticket and since I was buying 3, that would have been $36 for what?? anyway...

On my way back (I had finished my book on the way there: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis) so I took this opportunity to be creative and sketched out the seeing eye dog that was on the platform and then sat across from me when we were on the train. A black lab who was resting his head on her feet as we rode the train together. I noticed when he was a good dog, which really was the entire time, she would lean down and start massaging the top of his head and ears. It was really sweet and you could just tell they had such a bond.

And just a mention that the creative every day was an idea a found on this website http://www.creativeeveryday.com . I stumbled upon Leah's blog and signed up for it. I am still having a tough time figuring out the Mr. Linky widget thingy that she refers to, but I just think the whole idea of being creative EVERY day is a great one. Thanks Leah!!

Going to the Paradise Rock Club to see Mission of Burma tonight! Good Times Guaranteed!

Creative EVERY day

So this is what I ended up making last night

This is what I call Shaved Chocolate pie. What happened is this:

We had guests, we usually get pizza. I decided a dessert was in order and to use some ingredients that I had left over from all my Christmas dessert making.

I went to Whole Foods and got a ready made pie crust (I've never made my own crust - superstar challenge?). But they didn't have the graham cracker kind. This is a butter crust made by Vermont Mystic Pie company and it was buttery!!! Like a big cookie. Cooked the crust separate (it was frozen when I bought it) and then filled it with the pudding. The pudding was the classic Jell-O brand that you just add milk and stir. I cut the recipe of milk to 1.5 cups from the 2 they say to use on the package. J's pudding pie that I made during Christmas time was very soupy with 2 cups of milk. Poured the pudding in the crust and let sit in the fridge for about an hour. I had every intention of making my whip cream (hate the bottled stuff & cool whip -YUK) but then when my company came, the wine started flowing, the talks kept turning to laughter and I'm looking at the clock (it was quarter to 10pm) and thinking, "there's no way I'm whippin' cream." I don't have an electric beater, I hand mix everything. I've got the killer triceps to prove it too! So instead I took the white chocolate and a cheese grater and went to town. It was a hit. Tasted SO Good! Here's a creative close up!

Shaved Chocolate Pie

1 pie crust (I used Mystic Pie brand)

1 box of Jell-O brand instant pudding Chocolate

1.5 cups milk (I use 1%)

1 block of White Chocolate

Cook pie shell according to directions

when pie shell is done, make pudding according to directions on box but using only 1.5 cups of milk

Pour pudding mixture into pie shell and let it fridge uncovered for 1.5 hours.

Take out and shave white chocolate across the top using a cheese grater.

Serve immediately to friends who really really like chocolate!

Creative Every Day

I have accepted the challenge to be creative everyday. Whether it be art, food, gardening (I'd include music, but can't play or sing for sh*t) So I'm posting what I did on Monday:

a sketch of Luna

and what I did last night: a painting of a pup. The painting is for a client. I'm not sure how creative I'm going to be tonight. I just found out friends are coming over for dinner and we usually get pizza. Maybe I'll make something for dessert.

Under the Weather

This past weekend I suffered from a wicked head cold. This was after I had twisted my ankle something fierce last weekend so I haven't made it to the gym in some time and 2010 is not going as planned.

However, what I did do is join the "Happy Book" mailing list. This is a book that I signed up for to be mailed to me for a few days and in it I need to describe all the things that make me happy and then mail it to the next recipient. I think it will be interesting to see what other people put down and it'll have nothing to do with booze or drugs LOL! So what makes me happy? Hmmm.... horseback riding for sure. I went this past weekend despite being sick. J was mad because I could go riding but opted out of going ice fishing. I worked on a painting instead.

Which brings me to that I did get another commission last week which is nice because I usually don't expect them in January. One thing I also signed up for was a "creative every day" challenge. I think this is more of a mental challenge but I did some sketches of my kitty as she slept yesterday. Of course I forgot to bring them in, but will tomorrow. I think that will be a goal of mine to sketch something at least once a day. I'll be keeping the charcoal pencil on the coffee table so that it's ready when I am.

The painting is a Havanese painted in 2009.

2010 New year ...

Well this year started out on the wrong foot, literally. Whilst walking with J in Chester woods, I slipped on a snow covered log and twisted my ankle .... bad. Just rolled right on it. Holding my yelp of pain (didn't want to scare away any critters) I kept moving up the hill. By the time we got home I couldn't move it up and down, just side to side. So I will not be working to attain my 2010 goal which is to get rid of this *ss I have because I will not be going to the gym tonight.

I've also been thinking of what will be different this year as far as the art "career". I think this year may be the year of the self portrait? Or should I go deeper with acrylics? But first things first, I need to clean my condo and get the rest of the 2009 holiday season into the cellar.

I told myself my resolution was to be a better driver in 2010 and just last night I almost ran a red because I was to busy talking to J and the guy in front of me went through, but took a right turn. Jiminy Crickets, one of these days it's going to be bad. :(

Picture here is "Self portrait, Distorted" from 2006