I've been working hard to get the likeness correct for Hannah on this underpainting. I feel like I finally have it close and am now ready to start adding color!

Here's an update on Hannah, this is HARD!

I'm beginning a new journey, portraits of my kids! I'm starting with Hannah, our youngest. Here is the photo I'm using and the very rough beginning sketch.

I'm calling this done, off to the framers tomorrow. Next I plan on doing three portraits, one of each of my kids. I haven't done many portraits so it will be a learning experience!

Getting close, hope to finish this tomorrow.

More progress. Tonight I worked on the birds some and added more layers to the background. I still have more to do on the trees and birds.

Here's todays progress. I need to finish this by next weekend so I can have it framed before Christmas. I have about 16 hours in it so far, going pretty fast. I'm hoping to have it done with 8-10 hours more work.

I didn't get a chance to work on this over Thanksgiving. Here's my progress after tonight, as you can see still a long ways to go!

Three Chicadees

I've started a new piece. This one is being done with a different technique. I use a sanded surface paper and start with a watercolor underpainting. Here you can see the first two stages; the first is just the watercolor underpainting, the second has quite a bit of colored pencil on the background. I'm not worried about detail in the trees or birds yet, that will come later.

Well I'm about ready to call this finished. I'll set it aside for awhile and see if anything jumps out at me to be corrected.

More work on the plaid, 37 hours total so far. Next I'll finish the underside of the blanket and the foreground. After that I'll go over the whole piece, "tweaking" as necessary.

The saga of the plaid continues....................

Here's an update for today. I've worked about 5 hours on the blanket adding complementary colors for the shadows.

here's todays progress. Penny is just about done, I'll do some tweaking and add whiskers after I finish the blanket and floor. So now it's back to the blanket.......oh boy!

Here's todays progress, still a long way to go. 20 hours so far.

Penny 11-12-08

Here's an update on Penny, it's just a partial scan because the whole piece wont fit on my scanner. I tackled those eyes and started an underpainting on Penny with indigo blue. 15 hours in this so far.

Penny 11-4-08

I brought Penny with me to Illinois for my annual deer hunting trip. I've worked on her a bit, between hunting and naps haha. I have the first layer on the background done. Next I will start on Penny with complementary colors and then tackle those eyes!

Penny 10-27-08

Here's the first update on Penny. Right now I'm just trying to define the plaid blanket with local color. Once the first layer is complete I'll start in with complementary colors to define the values. I have about 10 hours in this so far, miles and miles to go!

Penny

I started a comission for a portrait of a dachsund. To say the least this one will be a challenge! The customer sent me a photo of a very old dog and asked me to use this picture as a reference but make Penny appear younger and remove her cataracts. I have a few different pictures of Penny to help, I also did a lot of research on the internet and found some other pictures.

Here we go.......................

First blog

Well I did it, since so many folks are blogging these days I decided to create my own. We'll see how well I keep it up-to-date! This blog will be mostly related to my art work but I'm sure I'll add other stuff from time-to-time.

Stay tuned!