Owen the Monkey

I recently received a commission to paint a piece for a newborn's nursery! It was a lot of fun. I'd like to share the process with you here.


The theme of the nursery is Jungle, and the color palette is yellow, browns and greens. My client mentioned she'd like an illustration of a monkey, and she mentioned the new baby's name too -- Owen. I had an idea immediately - how about a monkey hanging from a tree, and the tree branches spell the child's name OR the letters dangle from the tree? I put together some rough thumbnails for my client to choose from.


My client made her choice from the above thumbnail sketches. Then I moved on to the final sketch (I did not scan that step). Once I had the final sketch down on paper, I went forward with the inking. Here is how that came out:


I then moved on to the final painting. This was a lot of fun to paint. It felt looser and freer than my pet portrait work, since I was really working completely from my own imagination here.

Details:

What do you think?

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Progress Report on Fiona, Olive & Abe's portrait

So far, so good.

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Corgi sketches

I adore Corgis. I've never been commissioned to do one, though! I often sketch dogs just for fun and for practice. I did these sketches several months ago. Just today, I went through a ton of old sketchbooks. I was pleased to find these sketches. I enjoy them, and I hope you do too.

(I know this is a Corgi post, so please forgive the couple little chihuahuas thrown in there :) )

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Illiustration Friday: Instinct

My INSTINCT tells me that this little girl loves to read...
AND the color green, AND polka dots!

(This is the art I used for Picture-Book 2009. I'm on page 66 in the Tugeau 2 spread.)

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Taz & Petunia's portrait is complete!

Please head to my pet portrait blog to see the details, or visit my Flickr photostream.

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Taz & Petunia Portait is complete!!

Taz and Petunia's portrait is now complete! This was such a fun one to work on. (Is it me, or are my portraits getting more and more detailed?)
More workspace photos of Taz & Petunia's portrait in my Flickr photostream!

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I'm a proud new member of Boston Handmade

This February marks my first full month as a member of Boston Handmade! BH is a group of artists, artisans and crafters in the Greater Boston area, who all sell on Etsy. It's a pretty special group, and I'm very honored to have been accepted into the fray. The BH group is very active in local arts-commerce related events in these parts. Just this past December, I was thrilled to be a part of the Boston Handmade Downtown Crossing holiday store. With the help of the city and the mayor, BH transformed a storefront in the heart of Downtown Crossing from empty and grey to CRAFTY and YAY! We sold a lot of great stuff for people to give, and we got some pretty fantastic write-ups in the local papers (particularly the Globe and Herald which wrote full articles but got a line blurb in Decor 8, too!). Pretty awesome stuff. Anyway, I so enjoyed the whirlwind experience and sense of art community while hanging with the BH crew, that I thought, HEY, I am going to see if I can become a full-on member here!! So I did, and (yay) the rest is history!

Anyway, a new "new member" interview has been posted on the Boston Handmade blog featuring Yours Truly, and I wanted to share it with you. Please do check it out if you are so inclined, and also check out all of the fabulous artist members of BH. It's a very diverse and vibrant group. Lucky me to be a part of it!

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Anne Leuck Feldhaus is having an art giveaway!!

Click here for the deets. It's happening 'til Feb. 20 only, so hurry hurry hurry! :)

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Illustration Friday: Celebrate

CELEBRATE love and CELEBRATE friendship this Valentine's Day!

See another of my classic valentine's day cards here!

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Lucky Friday the 13th Giveaway!!

TODAY is lucky Friday the 13th!

To celebrate, I'm giving away an art print! Enter into a drawing to win an archival signed print of Lucky Cats. Leave a post here and/or FOLLOW ME on Twitter and reply to me (@wellerwishes), telling me what your FAVORITE LUCKY CHARM is!!!

I will do the drawing tomorrow! Good luck!!

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Lucky Friday the 13th Giveaway!

TODAY is lucky Friday the 13th!

To celebrate, I'm giving away an art print! Enter into a drawing to win an archival signed print of Lucky Cats. Leave a post here and/or FOLLOW ME on Twitter and reply to me (@wellerwishes), telling me what your FAVORITE LUCKY CHARM is!!!

I will do the drawing tomorrow! Good luck!!

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Fiona, Olive and Abe: finished ink drawing stage complete!

Fiona, Olive and Abe get the final ink treatment. Click on the images to enlarge. Coming up soon -- the finished, painted watercolor portrait! Yeah!! :)

Stay tuned!!

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Twitter

Do You Tweet?

At first, I thought, why bother with another online social networking tool? I was kind of at my saturation point right before I discovered Twitter. I had been on overdrive with Facebook, and then Twitter comes along to complicate my life. Honestly, I had to live off the grid for a few weeks because I was feeling a bit overexposed! Well, it's a few months later now, plenty of time to reflect, and I have formed a definite opinion between the two. There is just not enough time in the day to be a genuine devotee to both. It's not a contest, since both Twitter and FB both do different things, but for my most frequently used networking tool, I prefer Twitter.

Here's why:
• More direct, "clean" connections to others with similar interests
• Allows people to deliver information in a direct and succinct way (140 character limit)
• Virtually no "white noise" (no one's sending me plants or smiley faces, etc.)
• Allows you to connect with people who may deliver USEFUL, HELPFUL information in their tweets -- information which may help you gain more success and enjoyment with your artwork/business/hobby.

What's the diff?
Twitter is more about quick-hit promotion, information-sharing, opinion/feedback incubator. Which I love. Facebook is more a place to primarily connect with old friends where you can also promote your work and share information. I like that too. But, there is a time and a place for everything. As much as I love my iphone and it serves so many purposes (both utilitarian and trivial) for me, it simply cannot take the place of my day planner, no matter how many ways I have tried to make this happen. My day planner is right-to-the-point, no-nonsense, no fooling around. Ok so maybe it's a stretch, but I see similarities between that iphone conundrum and differentiating Facebook and Twitter. Somehow.

The bottom line for many people is that they don't "get" Twitter. I understand this. Twitter - and tweeting - it can be hard to wrap your head around: what it is, the benefits of doing it, the results, the connections made. And unless you are utilizing Twitter regularly, it's going to be meaningless to you. You have to use it to gain benefit. You have to dive in. It might seem like a painful commitment at first but once you get accustomed to it, you get a handle on that aspect pretty quickly, and you can set your own limits on your tweeting, which you are comfortable with, but that still make it worthwhile for you.

For me, utilizing Twitter is a more productive and sentient way to promote myself/network/share information/connect with others, in my fields of interest.

HELPFUL LINKS:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers

How To Use Twitter For Bloggers

Twitter for beginners

Growing your Twitter Presence

17 ways you can use Twitter

You're on Twitter. Now what?

What can you say in 140 characters or less in the Twitterverse?

10 Twitter Tips for Artists

Twitter For Artists Series by Art Paw:

Twitter For Artists 1:What do your Tweets Look like? (this one is pretty funny, but true)

Twitter For Artists 2: Customizing your background

Twitter For Artists 3: Creating your Background

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Taz and Petunia finished ink drawing

Taz & Petunia's portrait is all inked in. Next step will be the final watercolor painting. This portrait might just be the most detailed pen work I've ever done in a 9x12" size. I can't say for sure that it is THE most detailed, but if it's not,I know it's right up there!

The other portrait I am currently working on (Fiona, Olive and Abe) is also, for sure, one of the most ink detail-heavy 9 x 12's I've done yet. I'll be posting the finished ink drawing of that one soon - in it's entirety and displaying some of the detail highlights as I did with Taz & Petunias, above.

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Portrait Updates...

Taz & Petunia: ink in progress...

Fiona, Olive and Abe: ink in progress

Whew!!! I've completed the inking on both Taz & Petunia and Fiona, Olive and Abe. For now, I broke out the camera and snapped a few pics (above) during the inking stage, just for fun. I'm scanning them right now and will share the entire inked-in pieces in an upcoming post. So, check back soon!

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Boston Handmade Valentines shopping event

Boston Handmade had a cool valentine's shopping event last night in the south End. Looks like it went really great. Photographer Kerry Hawkins did a blog post on it. Click here to see!

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Fiona, Olive and Abe - final pencil sketch

Here is the final pencil sketch of another portrait I'm working on right now, Fiona, Olive and Abe the little hedge hog. ( A couple of weeks ago, I posted the first compositional thumbnails).
There are lots of details in this portrait!

Fiona, Olive and Abe are sitting in front of a window with a Magnolia tree outside. This is a spot the kitties like to lounge in at home, so we reflected that in the portrait.

The portrait border, on the vertical left and right, is made up of olive branches and cherry branches. The olive branches are symbolic of Olive, and the cherry branches and fruits were included because one of their kitty bowls has cherries on it. The border has feathers at the top and at the very bottom left and right areas of the border. The cats love to play with feather toys and this was an elegant way symbolize these favorite toys in the portrait.

Fiona holds her favorite catnip bag. This bag has a stars-and-stripes motif. I borrowed from this motif for the background, which is sprinkled with stars. Fiona is also lounging on a suitcase. This is her favorite place to lounge at home. Fiona is the "Queen Bee" kitty of the house, and as such I placed a symbolic queen bee in an inconspicuous spot on the tree.

Olive holds her favorite mouse toy and lounges on a big cushion. The pattern on the cushion has significance -- it is the pattern of Olive's favorite comforter at home. Olive's tail is big and fluffy and is often in this position, so it was fitting for the portrait.

Abe, the hedge hog, sits in the crook of Fionas tail. Abe doesn't routinely curl up in Fiona's tail at home, but Fiona's tail is often in this position, and this was a fitting way to give Abe some prominence in the portrait. Abe wears a little "Abraham Lincoln" hat, and holds his favorite ball.

More to come soon!!

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Axel and Nikki pet portrait shops are now live!

See "Nikki Black Dog Greek Goddess" portrait shop here!

See "Axel Chihuahua" portrait shop here!

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Illustration Friday: Time

Tea Time !

This is a finished illustration of a sketch I posted a couple of weeks ago. Hope you enjoy.

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"Black-line" vector drawing using Flash

"Ring Bearer" above: Black-line work done in Flash
and exported as .ai file. Painting done in Photoshop.

For a long time I've struggled with finding the perfect method to produce black line work. I wanted a tool that felt as natural using Photoshop does to me, but that also allows me to create vector line art. The truth is, I just don't enjoy working in Adobe Illustrator enough to commit to a line style created in it. It's simply too much of a struggle for me to get a line in Illustrator that is not dictated by the medium in a really forced, unnatural way, so I don't use it. But, I also want my work to be flexible for clients' needs. So, all in all, vector really is the way to go. Up until now, I've just been doing any "black-line" style work in Photoshop, but the no-vector trade-off really limits it's usefulness... and, by extension, the marketability of my work as well.

Well, recently I read a great tutorial about how Flash works as a vector drawing tool by illustrator Bob Flynn. I use Flash at my day job, and, though I illustrate in Flash all the time, I never knew that you could export your work as an .ai file (Adobe Illustrator's native working file) and have absolutely no loss of line quality. Up until now, when I have worked between Illustrator and Flash, I'd always had a loss of quality in the vector art, as I'd move to and fro. Why?? I was cutting and pasting. NOT exporting. An "A-ha" moment, for sure, but I just never expected something as simple (and as useful!) as "Export > Export Image... to Adobe Illustator" to be an option in a product which is primarily used for screen resolution only. Live and learn!

Read the Flash Tutorial here

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