Current Works In Progress
Worked on the Indian corn painting some more yesterday, and hopefully I'll wrap it up today, tomorrow at the latest... still need to finish Mr Turtle too, so I can get photos and send them to the fall shows! I did another ear of the corn and put in some blues to the shadows of the husks, but I think this photo is a bit dark, sorry!
Here's the Indian Corn now...
.. and this is what I had done previously... that nice floating ear of corn, that is now starting to look a bit more grounded with shading on the table and ear below. One more ear to go, and a few leaves... ;)
Painting on Canvas, Turtle in the Grass (not the official title! Have a suggestion? Email me!) This is based on a photo I took last year and have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to paint. My opportunity arose when I was to come up with a painting to demonstrate while at Front Royal's monthly Art Walk (third Thursday of each month from 5-8pm). I set up at Gourmet Delights and paint. Thought this would be a fun one to do!
This is how he looks now. I still have work to do on his shell, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with him. He's on hold while I get some other projects finished...
This is the earlier stage, before I did some detailing and the grass...
Previous Works in Progress...
Elk Breakthrough Mural, finished July 3, 2008:
Progress of Elk Breakthrough Mural:
This is a mural on the exterior of a garage for a hunter friend... Started on June 24, 2008. Here is the chalk sketch on the wall, on day one... I think you can see it... It's the part that usually takes the longest, getting the dimensions and proportions correct. I was lucky, the client was there to help me figure it all out.
Here's a burnt umber "sketch" (using burnt umber paint), took about half an hour...
This is the grass finished, after about an hour more...
Here's the first sky, after about another hour and a half. It was getting late, so I decided to leave it for the next painting session.
DAY 2, June 25, 2008:
New sky that looks much better, got that elk fleshed out, and did some fun foliage. My client wants the background very simple (I had to pester him a bit to get him to let me do ANY!), so this is probably all we'll be doing with the landscape. I still have to finish the antlers of course, and "ground" the elk. I plan on painting the real ground up to him. I also wanted to do a "broken cinderblock" edging, but it didn't look right. You can see a little bit of it on the far left, under the branch peeking through. I will play around with it on my computer between now and the next painting session, which unfortunately won't be until next week at the earliest, weather permitting.
Here's a close up of the face as it stands on day 2... You can see how rough the surface is. From a distance it looks pretty smooth though.
See you on day 3, whenever that may be... ;)
Past Works In Progress
(left here so you can see the stages!)
Corvette Mural, private residence in Winchester VA
BOY, did I learn a lot while painting this mural, not the least of which was about Corvettes! My husband and I saw a Corvette while driving around today, and he asked me, "what year??" The interesting thing was, I KNEW...
Before:
After:
More after pictures on the "murals" page...
As for the process... up to day 15 is listed here, after that it was really just a lot of details, details, details....
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
I was off the week of Thanksgiving, but have done a little since being back. I have "grayed in" several more cars. Why are they all gray? This is an underpainting, so I can get shading done without worrying about blending colors at this stage. I want to get proportions correct first, then make sure my shading is consistent among all the cars... I did the cars above the same way, and after the gray I will go in and glaze them with color, then add details and highlights to make them SHINE:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Day 8:
I got impatient to see some new color, so the Pace Car got the color treatment today...
Day 9, 10 and 11
I'm skipping forward a bit... day 9 and 10 were pretty uninteresting, but 11 was pretty cool... Won't be able to get back to it till Jan 8th... One more car and then color and details, my favorite part! Bear with me...
Days 12, 13, 14 and 15...
This painting is now complete (see beginning stage below). Here's the finished painting, also located on my Work on Canvas/ Miscellaneous page...
The Cat's Meow, 11x14 acrylic on board
My latest painting "just for fun"... no title yet. I plan to enter this in the Blandy Sketch Group's fall art show next month... This is the burnt umber underpainting stage...
Frederick County Animal Shelter... ongoing...
(last updated Dec 5, 2007)
This is a large ongoing mural I'm working on at the new Frederick County Animal Shelter in Winchester, Virginia. The photo shown is after 7 painting days. The dedication ceremony was Wednesday, December 6th, and I felt honored to attend. It was a wonderful ceremony.
I donated this mural because I hope to make the new shelter a place of beauty for the dedicated, hard-working people who work there, as well as the wonderful patrons who have adopted, and will adopt, the deserving animals who find themselves without a family.
I hope to add animals to the mural over time, eventually having at least one pet depicted for each of the shelter employees. So far, I have depicted 2 of the shelter's former mascots. I have Gretchen, standing "watch" over one of the doors designated for employees only, and Henry (who passed away just after the mural was painted), attentively watching a kitty sitting in a tree above him. I was also able to finish Charlotte, the late Harrington Smith's cat, trying to keep her balance over a memorial plaque mounted in their honor. And finally, one of the shelter employee's dogs is shown playing with one of the many pups fostered by his owner, Holly.
You can see some of these details on the "murals" page.
Check back to see progress on this mural!