A response to the snow

I normally love the snow and winter but today, it just seemed cold with a biting wind. After life drawing, I came home and painted a nice summer field of flowers to make up for the icy wind. And if I weren't so afraid of bees and insects (and nature), I would love to stand in the field like this girl and wave my arms around too. Ok, maybe not.

I have done lots of art for presents this week and I can't show any of it on my blog til the holiday season is over. I have no idea if anyone in my family reads my blog (hi Mom!) or not but best not spoil any surprises.

On the TV addiction front, I managed to blaze through 8 seasons of Supernatural while working these past couple of weeks. I draw or design on the computer and watch out of the corner of my eye on the iPad. It's quite the day job. I think I'll draw the many confused faces of Castiel next week. He makes me laugh.

Happy holiday weekend and PPF :)

Mixed Media Ladies & Crazy Hats

I love mixed media art and don't always get a chance to dabble and make something fun. Last night I made a Calavera Girl with crazy flower hat in my favorite color combination - blues with oranges and red. The face is actually colored pencil on Stonehenge paper. I think I'll stick her in my Etsy shop. She's fairly small at 5 x 7.

As mentioned in my last post, I've reorganized one of the online workshops I presented for ArtTrader Magazine a couple of years ago - Mixed Media Goth Girls. I've taken out some content and added in some new art and the new workshop will be available to start on January 6th, 2014. Registration is now open! The pretty pink lady on the top left is part of the workshop and a full listing of program content is available on the workshops page.  There are 5 videos and a 30+ page workbook so lots of fun content!


Yesterday I finally managed to scan two paintings that have been sitting around for ages! They're pretty big and I couldn't get them scanned properly, even in pieces. I had tried numerous times. But I persevered and finally managed to piece them together in Photoshop... it took a long time. It's my mixed media Voodoo King and Queen from a couple of years ago. I thought I might do an online series of big hats, not necessarily voodoo hats, just big mixed media hats. I think that would be a fun workshop. Either that or Calavera girls - perhaps both! One of those themes (or both) are coming in the new year.

Goth Girls Mixed Media Art Workshop: Coming soon!

I used to present online workshops for ArtTrader Magazine a couple of years ago. One of the programs that I presented was Mixed Media Goth Girls. It featured a 30 page workbook and about 7 streaming videos running the gamut from drawing simple to more complex goth girls, to hair and clothing through to creating mixed media and collaged canvases. I'm going to rework the content a little bit and add in a few things and then make it available on my blog here for a small fee.

The workshop will be available in a couple of weeks. Just an advance post!

Values, Color & Life Drawings

This week's exercise for the Daily Drawing Group over at ATCsforAll.com was values so I took some time tonight to do a painting based on a vintage photo. I didn't take it to a nice complete finish because I want to go finish watching Supernatural (recent convert!), but I did take some time to give the vintage lady a big blast of color.... and an awesome pink hat. This is what I love about painting digitally. I can take my painting, create a new layer, and then paint over top of it and make a brand new image. Below are pics of my WIPs. I often get questions and comments about digital painting so this will show you some of the process. It's pretty much exactly the same way I paint traditionally. Messy blobs of values that eventually firm up into known shapes.

In today's life drawing session, I concentrated on portraits for the longer poses. I had a decent drawing day so they turned out ok. I was happy. It's a good day when you come home with a couple of decent drawings!

Art Deco Set

I was searching through my computer last night, looking for some old images and came across this set of cards (ATCs) that I made about 6 years ago for a swap on the now defunct ATcards. They're digital though I did print a copy for trading.They were so much fun to make and to come up with little stories for each character. I want to do another swap with the same theme. I can't remember exactly what the theme title was though I believe it was something like "My Weird Family." I went with an art deco theme for mine, graphic design like.

I have a weird family. Not quite like the cards but some of them are certainly out there in odd ways! They could probably say the same about me *cough*.

ATCs & Decos

I spent the weekend catching up on some art I owe for trades along with making some new decos and ATCs  (above) to send out into the art ether.  And much of yesterday was spent putting my art on phone cases and t-shirts at various sites. The joys of earning a living through art. Ahem. I truly wish that the making part was the full time job and the administration, promotion, mailings, etc. was the part time job. But it doesn't work that way. I think I probably spend about 50% of my work time on the less fun tasks. Ouch. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. :)

Art Journal Pages

I haven't kept an art journal for a while now. In fact, the last time I worked on this particular journal was in 2010. I bought an amazing Vincent Rossini book with super thick handmade paper and I love the thing. It's a great journal and well made. After purchasing, I promptly filled in 5 or so pages and then shoved it on the art bookshelf for the next 3 years while I concentrated on work and other art projects. I pulled it out the other day since I've been visiting many blogs with a lot of journal art and they've inspired me to finish up this one. It's a mixed media art journal and I thought I'd share the pages online too. I don't really use text on my pages since I'm not a writer (clearly) and I don't need to express myself with words or share my feelings. That's not for me. But I sure do like to make pretty pictures and most often I sell them, trade them or make them for work and barely have any left for myself. A journal keeps them all in one spot and is something I can actually keep. Yay! Here are some pages, from 2010 and from this weekend too.

Warning, there is some nudity and occasional naughty words.

WIPs, Life & Little Bits

Unfortunately, I'm having one of those weeks where the things I draw REALLY aren't matching the visions in my head. I know I'll get these "imagined" paintings right at some point, but it won't be this week!

In the meantime, I fiddled about with a group of girls chatting away at a club (that you can't see yet!). Maybe I'll come back and finish it. For now (and maybe forever), it's a WIP.

I like the color scheme though. I spent some time looking at the gorgeous palettes over at www.colorlovers.com and spied this one that reminded me of candy floss. I added in some browns for a bit more variation. If I don't finish this painting, then I might take those same colors for another painting.

I made some decent drawings at the life drawing session today. This is one of them though I really have to remember to take my photos during the day, not at night when I want to post... even with the ugly yellow flash color distorting the image. Ah well. She still looks the same I figure.



While playing Call of Cthulhu tonight, I managed to ink up an old man and then added some color with markers and a dash of acrylic paint. I'll probably stick him in someone's Deco or maybe in one of my own. Maybe splash some found poetry or a quote over top of him.

All of the images are clickable. I stuck up small versions here to squish it all into one post. Happy PPF. :)

A Retro Dancer & Whimsical Cityscapes

Here's a pretty retro dancer with pink flowers in her hair. I used one of the faces I painted in the 29 Faces challenge--might as well put them to good use, right? Still took a whole though I'm not sure what took longer - painting her face or the rose!

I did something way out of my norm this weekend. I made mixed media cityscapes! Normally, I love creating mixed media art but I don't usually create cutesy whimsical things. This weekend I did! I run the Daily Drawing Group (in the Art Discussions forum if you're a member) over on ATCsforAll.com and I have to come up with challenges each week so thought a whimsical landscape challenge would be interesting. Only I ended up making whimsical cities for some reason. But there are hills, and trees! And clouds. That counts I think. The pieces are both 5" x 7". Tons of fun to make.