New Kitty ACEO

I decided to go back to an unlikely medium again: ballpoint ink pen. I love the effect and the cleanness of it. I can still get a great tonal range and I like the fact that the mark is pretty much permanent, which can lead to some interesting results.

I did this peaceful sleeping kitty over the past few days (ballpoint ink is time-consuming also). I did a spot of watercolor for the nose.

New ACEO completed today

I just did this one...I had the sketch around for some time so I decided to finally complete it. It will be up for auction either next week or the week after next. It is watercolor, black micron ink and sepia ink on watercolor paper. It's entitled, "The Things Cats Do."




UPDATE:

I haven't been able to work on my Maine Coon kitties as of late although I have filled in more of the fur on the first kitty. I will update the end of next week.

Old King and New ACEOs

I did this drawing back in December of 2007. It is entitled, "Old King." It was to complement a piece I had done entitled, "The Pride" which I sold on ebay. It is up for auction now:

Old King


It is pencil on 140 lb cold press Arches Watercolor paper and measures 5" x 7".
Here is "The Pride":




I worked on a few more ACEOs:



Gold acrylic, watercolor and sepia ink "Symphony in Gold"


Pencil on watercolor "Kitty Bliss"


Watercolor and sepia ink "Me-Yoooww!"

I've been a little busy in my absence. All of these will be up for auction next week.

Some New Work and WIP

These are the pieces I have been working on the past few days.


I started this one last month and finished it (added the butterfly) this month. It is up for auction on ebay now.


I completed this one on Friday night. It is a mix of watercolor, graphite, and black prismacolor pencil. I liked how it came out.


This is a work in progress of two Maine Coon kittens. First I did the shapes. Then I did the outlines. Now I am getting to the detailing and I like how it is turning out so far. It is 8" x 10", a lot larger than I usually work. I'll continue to post the updates until it is completed...I'll say in about a week or so.

My first "real" watercolor...

It's been a lot of fun playing with this medium. It took some getting used to it drying so fast compared to oils however other than that I feel it is worthwhile to explore it some more. So I decided to paint a flower. I did a blue and yellow underpainting and layered the other colors on top to build up the color. I never thought I would enjoy flat brushes so much (I prefer filbert). Also, who knew that textures would be so easily achievable with such a volatile medium? There was a yellow and red flower in the background however it was becoming more prominent than the purple one so I tried to brush it out with the green-blue background. I like it.

Update

Ok after feeling a bit uneasy about the pastel piece I was determined to figure out what bothered me about it. Then I did. The eyes were uneven. Now since the piece is fixed I couldnt' go in and manually correct it so I had to be a bit creative. I decided to add the wedjat, the left Eye of Horus. It is most appropriate because this is often depicted on Hathor, the mother of Horus. An ankh, the symbol of life, was added to the background to counteract the heavy focal point the eye ended up being on the piece. I feel much better about it this way than before and made sure I measured it so the eyes could align properly.

New ACEO

Ok...I still didn't stick with the drawing for the day theme. Today it was supposed to be a lamp however I drew giraffes instead. Gold acrylic (background), watercolor and pastel pencil (for some highlights), and sepia ink on 140 lb watercolor paper were used. I love the gold acrylic. I'm going to do some more decorative type things with it in the future. I really liked working on this mother and child duo...I rarely ever draw animals that aren't felines :-).

Draw a.....

To make sure I actually do a drawing a day, I have written down a bunch of subjects (inspired by the EDM challenges) to draw everyday. Well my sketch for Friday was supposed to be a shoe...not the most interesting subject matter so I changed it to drawing in public. I'll try not to change the subject like that in the future. I drew my 2 year old daughter while we were at a restaurant. She was looking behind her at a group of people that were laughing loudly (babies are so nosy lol) so I finally had a pose that she could stay in long enough to quickly sketch her with all those purrty curls. When she realized I was drawing something she kept trying to sneak a look...she's a funny little girl. This was done in fine point sharpie.




I started working on this piece and finished on Saturday morning. I had these Gioconda soft pastel pencils sitting here ever since I bought them off of ebay last year and never really used them. I figured it was about time. This was done on a toned Mi Teintes charcoal paper. Once again practice makes perfect and I'll continue to practice with these until I get the hang of them.

About Face and new ACEO

I attended the About Face studio tonight. I worked on a larger piece...unfortunately I couldn't photograph it very well with my camera phone. Here goes.


This is the first drawing of the night. Charcoal on paper.


This is the second drawing...I only worked on two tonight because I wanted to play with a longer pose. This is Charcoal and ink on drawing paper. This paper did not have enough tooth for me. I'll try a different one next week.


A close up.



New Kitty ACEO


Gold acrylic, watercolor and sepia ink on watercolor paper.

Two Cat ACEOs

I completed this one this morning. Watercolor, gold acrylic, and archival free sepia ink on watercolor paper.



I completed this one on Saturday 10/4. I am revisiting a series I did back in 2005 and this is the second one completed this year in the Watching Kitty Revisited series. Simple pencil on watercolor...I like this far better than pencil on bristol...as I've said before, the smooth texture of bristol takes something away overall in my opinion.

I have started an etsy shop! I am picking a few to list on there however I still intend to list on ebay often. More than likely I'll continue selling the Watching Kitty series on ebay and the Naptime for Kitty will be listed on etsy.

Calico ACEO

I completed this drawing tonight while watching the vice presidential debate (which was rather uneventful). It's a calico kitty in watercolor and sepia ink pen on Arches 140 lb watercolor paper. This will go up for auction next week.

About Face Studio Classes

Tonight I attended the About Face studio classes that are held at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. The space is really huge and I felt really at home immediately. Our model was great too. He had a really angular face...a bit Rubenesque (is that a word?) and was a great challenge to draw. He had a long chin so it was fun working on the proportions. I worked primarily in charcoal. Other artists there were working in a wide variety of medium from pencil to oil paints. I attended both the portrait class (6-7:45) and the figure drawing class (7:45-8:15). The classes are longer respectively however you can attend either. Here are the fruits of my labor:


The first drawing of the night...my warm up.


My second drawing of the night. Some of the folks seemed surprise that I was doing them so quickly. If it's not a commission I find it difficult to stay on a live subject for too long without moving around or doing multiple drawings.


I got a little restless from doing just the face so I did a quick body sketch. I wasn't able to scan the entire drawing however I managed to get the gist of it.


This is my final portrait drawing of the night. I wanted to concentrate more on the strong lighting moreso than anything else as well as his angular face (most interesting!) A full frontal (I was bored with the side view) really gets the starkness of his features and that wonderfully elongated chin...lots of room for experimentation there. The figure class had begun during my time drawing so I ventured over there. I only managed to get a few gestures and a 15 minute drawing on a 25 minute pose done before I called it a night. These I won't post here and in the future I'll probably stick with the portrait class. This was all in all a lot of fun and "good practice." I'm not as rusty as I thought I was...Well until next Tuesday :-).

Tiger Eye Drawing

I was playing with my Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils today. I abhor anything remotely related to blending or smearing outside of the pencil itself so watercolor paper is my preferred paper. Well not today. I had some bristol board laying around here for over a year that hasn't gotten any love, mainly because of the smooth texture. I decided to give it a whirl. The result is this tiger eye. Hair is a lot easier on watercolor for me versus bristol because I have to make the texture on it using alternative means such as my exacto knife to get something workable. It's ok I guess...more practice (and back to domestic cats!).

Drawings for today...

I've been on a roll lately. Today I decided to try my hand at a flower close up using those gold acrylics. It didn't take too long to do and I really liked how the gold came out in the background and on the dark part of the flower.





I finally got somewhat of a break away from the kids today. Somehow managed to get all four down for a nap at the same time (W-O-W!) so I went outside and sat on the porch in the cool fall afternoon. Saw a oak leaf sitting on the step and decided to draw it. Waved to a few neighbors...kicked around a few acorns. It was nice. It's so rare I get those by myself I can finally relax type of moments. Then the phone rang. *sigh*

I decided to try something different. I'm still relatively new to the watercolor medium. It's been a lot of fun, however I wanted to get a little technical and do some layering so I drew this little kitty (I call it Puss in Boot :-D). I mostly wanted to do the boot (couldn't you tell) and I was happy how it turned out. I just layered yellow ochre, cadmium yellow and burnt sienna with a purple (made from ultramarine and vermilion) and got some beautiful ranges of color. Not bad for a first try...I will definitely employ this technique in the future but mostly moreso for humans and objects.

Looking back to my first watercolors just a few weeks ago to now I would definitely say I have grown considerably in my understanding of the medium...I'll be sticking to this for awhile.