I will post stages of paintings and murals here so you can see how a painting progresses.  I like for you to see the stages so that you can see how a painting usually starts out... UGLY!!  This is particularly important for beginning Artists to see, so you feel less intimidated by painting.  It's all a matter of refining, refining, refining...   I also want potential clients to see, so they don't panic when they see the early stages of their projects in the works! 

Current Works In Progress

(last updated July 11, 2009)

Taking a break from the Barn to catch up on a few other projects, but I'll be going back soon... 


Canoe Paddle Contest Entry, July 11, 2009


Front Royal is having a river awareness day on August 15, 2009.  To build interest, they announced a "decorate a paddle" contest.  I am being sponsored by Gourmet Delights Gifts and Framing, and this is the progress I've made on my paddle so far.  I have to turn it in on the 15th, hoping to finish it Monday but we shall see!

This is one side as of yesterday, depicting above and below the surface of the water...




Today I added some bubbles to indicate movement:




This is the other side, depicting my raccoon buddy, Brad, peeking out to see what's going on, on the river!




Extreme close up!



I will be detailing the leaves on the raccoon side, and though you can't really see it, there's a blacksnake wrapped around the neck of the paddle.  Don't worry, he's a happy blacksnake ...





Day 11, June 4, 2009
Back to the Barn!  (Earlier photos below the Mustang Mural)













The hotel lobby/ restaurant is under way now...



Day 20- June 24, 2009

Been painting, but not posting, sorry!  OK, so the Empty Arms Hotel's downstairs is now finished, with a restaurant on the left, the lobby in the middle, and a lounge on the right...



The Last Chance Saloon is also complete, and Miss Kitty decided to stop waving and put her other hand on her hip, too...



Upstairs at the Saloon, we have a couple who thankfully remembered to pull the shade, and Ruby, one of the "working girls", taking a much-deserved break...





The Mercantile got a stained glass window over the door...



The Bank is complete, with a Cashier's cage on the lower left, and an office for the Loan Officer on the lower right.





This image is of the church, which is currently under construction.  It will have "stained glass" windows, once I get a shot at it, after the Craftsmen are through with their magic!  In this photo you can see the side of the bank that I painted to make the building look 3 dimensional.  The landscape will include a stagecoach, a cabin, and various trees and shrubbery...



And finally, the sky overhead, and an overview of how things look at this point...





More to come, stay tuned!




Patriotism
Acrylic on stretched canvas, 14x11
Stage one:





Coyote (SOLD)
Acrylic on Gessobord, 14x11

COMPLETE on "works on canvas" page
Quick break from cars to something fuzzy!  This Coyote is something a friend suggested I do for a possible buyer, and I kinda needed a break from cars and turtles  anyway... (Turtle Too on the Miscellaneous page, also completed this month).  Coyotes are similar to wolves, but they're smaller with more petite features and bigger ears, and they're usually a tan-red color.



He was looking a bit wolf-y, had to pare him down a bit and make his ears bigger... but he is now finished and sold!!






Mustang Drive In
(Near Lynchburg, VA, Jan 21, 2009- April 11, 2009 pending reassessment in a couple of months to make sure the client is happy!)

So... a wonderful woman contacted me after seeing the Corvette mural here on my website, and asked me if I could do that for her as well.  I said, no, that's a one of a kind, but I can do something uniquely for YOU!  Turns out she's a Mustang gal (like me), so we decided to go for it.   Here's a step by step, more or less, of the progress of this mural...

Day 2, January 22, 2009
 (you didn't miss anything on day 1, trust me!)





And here's a view of the outline of the focus car, but as it turns out, I drew in the WRONG year Mustang... this is a '67, which was on the list to go in the mural, but the client actually owns a '66, so I will be making the necessary adjustments... easy enough at this early stage!  Whew!  Glad we discovered the error before I fully painted it!  My bad!!




Back to work...
Day 4, February 4, 2009
(nothing special on Day 3, just established my horizon line and painted in some of that black treeline...)


 
A closer view of the ticket booth and sign, based on the clients' locale...  I will be checking with my client as to what she would like to see listed as the features on the marquee...  Long way yet to go, but I felt the need to get some fun details in!






Day 5, February 5, 2009

OK, today's progress isn't pretty or exciting..
I decided that since I wouldn't be able to come next week (family obligations), I at least wanted to fill this wall with paint.  Unfortunately, I have less information than I need... I will need to do some major online searches for the cars I need in the poses I need them to be in to fit in the mural OR find someone with the cars I need and have a photo shoot!  I also thought it might be kind of fun for the family to see cars "filter in" over time, as if the drive in is actually getting fuller... it's still early in the evening right now ;)

So, I decided to just make the parking lot a bit empty for now, and I will fill it with cars over the next few weeks as I find the references...
Today's installment was time-consuming but necessary-- I used relatively small brushes to get some texture, and went over it several times to get the right coverage.  I will still have to do more minute texture, but not until after the cars are in.

I hope to do more GRAVEL, and maybe a car or two tomorrow... stay tuned!




Day 6, February 6, 2009

OK, so I finally tackled a car.. the BIG one even... MUSTANG, BABY!!  I'm pleased with how it's looking so far... lots of "bling" (emblems and details) to be added once I get a gander at my Client's actual car.  For now though, I'm satisfied.  I will be heading home tomorrow, and will be taking a hiatus next week, but weather permitting I am planning to be back to this on or around Feb 15.. stay tuned...





Day 7, February 17, 2009

On to a sweet 1967 Camaro, former car of the client's brother...






Day 8, February 18, 2009

It was a long day of drawing and re-drawing, with little painting.. but I got the 56 Chevy Bel Air in, and some detailing on the Mustang.  I know, I only did half the grille, but I got the horse emblem done...







Overview of the side wall (trust me, the rest is a mess!!)



Day 9, February 19, 2009

Well, it took me all of a very long painting day (it's nearly 2 am right now and I've only stopped painting about an hour ago), seems these little teeny cars are deceptive... I thought I could finish them AND the whole first row of cars today, but I was sorely (literally... I'm getting a massage after this one!!) mistaken.  But I'm happy with the progress, even if it is SLOW! 

Today I tweaked the Chevy Belair from yesterday (it was sloping a bit in the rear end, and it needed some more white on the tail), and did 4 other cars around the ticket booth... a '58 Dodge Coronet (red), a '57 Ford Thunderbird (pink), a '58 Corvette (yellow... I'm kinda familiar with that one from the last drive in mural), and a '41 Buick Woody Wagon.









Overview as it stands now...



Day 12- February 26, 2009

Sorry, I skipped a few days... got a few more cars in, some are still being tweaked (like that Dodge Coronet in the foreground), but progress is slow and steady.  I am still making a lot of decisions at this point, but most of the cars are decided upon. 

 





That pink Mustang started out life on the wall as a light blue Mustang, but upon further research, I found out that the '66 Mustang did indeed have a factory option of pink paint, so it got a paint job...




Day 16- March 4, 2009
Sorry, I got kind of sidetracked, haven't been good about updating...  The '58 Dodge Coronet on the left got a new paint job.  My client commented on the fact that there was a lot of gray in that corner, so I decided to add some color over there.  I'm so glad she was honest and brought that to my attention... sometimes I just don't "see" things the same when I've been looking at things too long!  It's not really so red in person, it's a dark reddish pink, kind of a raspberry color, and it was taken from the color of some tiles elsewhere in the space.





Day 18- March 6, 2009

This is where I left it last, will hopefully be finishing things up in the next couple of weeks... details galore coming up!




OK, big skip here...
Day 26 (final, pending reassessment in a couple of months)- April 10, 2009

So there are lots of people populating the drive-in now, including my client and her family.  I have blocked them out, for privacy.  There are many personal elements to this mural, which make it truly one of a kind.  I also used some silver metallics on key chrome areas so it has a glowing quality at night with the lights out...





My favorite part, something cute and crittery! ;)



A little advertising never hurts...





The BARN
(Winchester VA, Jan 5, 2009- on hold while I do the New Drive In...)

I have had the pleasure of being asked to do some work in a wonderful space in a renovated barn.  The clients built all of these wonderful buildings, creating a half-scale western town, in an addition to the main barn.  The workmanship here is extraordinary, and I consider it a great honor to be able to add a few brushstrokes to it to make it even more realistic...

Here's the before, as it was on my first visit...



Then, they had their Carpenter base it blue for me (I helped them choose a color that would work well with my mural paints).  Already a marked improvement!




Day 1, January 4...
Next, I started painting some clouds and mountains for a backdrop...




Day 2, January 6...
...more cloud work, and the rest of the mountains...





Day 3, January 7
Today I painted 2 of the building's signs on site, on a ladder.  They were done completely by hand, so they're not perfect, but that's what we were going for.  Sorry about the blurry photos, I'll try to remember my tripod tomorrow!



Closer view of the Saloon, which will be the "Last Chance" Saloon after tomorrow, I was just kind of anxious to do the fun, swirly stuff today.





Day 4 , January 8...
I finished off these signs, didn't get another one done but I did draw in my guidelines for the Mercantile.  I did a couple embracing in the window of the Empty Arms Hotel (their arms aren't so empty!).  Also, the ceiling (sky) has been based blue in anticipation of some clouds up there as well.

 


Closer view of our romantically inclined couple...



So here's the overview on day 4...

 
Day 5, January 15

I was supposed to be starting a new mural this week, but we had to postpone that one another week, so I went back to the Barn today, and I'm going again tomorrow...  Got all but one of the signs done now..

Here's an overview and closer view of the US Marshal's office (yes, it's spelled correctly, we had quite a debate about it and looked it up extensively!)






And here's the Mercantile... Note the small building to the right, with the yellow door, which is the Doctor's office, there will be a sign there soon...







Day 6, January 16

Today I got a couple more windows done...





Overview at the end of Day 6...



And one final sign...



Here's a photo that will help you understand the scale...  I apologize for the blurry countenance, but the anonymity of my model must be protected...



This will be the last day for this mural for a little while, I will be starting another mural next week near Lynchburg, stay tuned!



Finished the corn painting, now titled "Indian Summer", and the turtle, titled "Peek A Boo!"... here I've left the stages for you to see...

Indian Summer... 11x14 on Claybord, started October of 2007!!  Wow, that took a LONG time!



Detail...


 A bit more work than the next photo, but not quite done yet...




.. 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... ;)



The initial UGLY stage...





Peek A Boo!, turtle on Gessobord.  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, finally finished!  He has a shell now.. in my photo, I realized that the actual turtle I shot had a broken spot just over his head that was NOT translating well to the painting, so I decided to find a photo of a turtle whose shell was intact and paint in it's shell instead.  Just goes to show that any imperfections in a photo can be worked with and made to suit!



And the previous steps so you can see that they all start out pretty ugly, it's a matter of refining, refining, refining...



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... ;)

Well am I awful.  I just realized I never finished this out!  Here's day 3, complete except for sealing, which I will wait to do for a couple of weeks to allow it to dry completely, and also to let my client "live" with it.  It's best to make any changes BEFORE the final sealer is applied.  I did end up doing the broken cinder block edges, and I think it turned out reasonably well.





After sealing several weeks later, with me, my only available model, to show scale...  Lucky for me he's an amenable elk and allowed me to pet him without any trouble





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!