Hair Sketches

Some sketches I did today on the theme of extreme hairdoes. Maybe I will make these into a triptych of watercolors sometime.

Tub Cats

Lester loved to hang out in the tub all day. Sometimes Noreen (my other cat) would join him.

After I finished the painting and was looking at it and feeling pretty good about it and especially about how the knobs turned out, I realized I had forgotten the spigot. I think my train of thought was, I especially like the faucet. Wait! There is no faucet! How annoying is that? Oh well. One small caveat: this painting is inspired by my cats, but my bathroom does not necessarily look this grimy.

Illustration Friday: Red

Here is my piece for this week's topic on Illustration Friday: red. It's been very cold the last couple of days, and this is pretty much what I look like when I go out.

New Painting

So, my boyfriend has been gone to Canada for a little while now, and I've been busily painting in all my free time. Here is my latest watercolor.

Goodbye Lester

My cat Lester died recently. He was a lovely, delicate and immensely stupid black cat who liked to eat anything-my paint, lint, and unfortunately string, which is what ultimately did him in. I painted this picture of him the day after he died. Goodbye Lester, you will be missed.

Happy Christmas Eve

A harmonica playing man for the blog. This is a bit of coffee shop sketching fun. I love my job.

The second installment of "Painting Processs" will be coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

Painting process

I started a new painting and thought it would be interesting to document its process start to finish. Here is the first installment. The first image is a thumbnail from my sketchbook, and the rest are photographs of the painting as it develops. I am using oil on gessoed board. My thumbnail idea was very light, airy, sweet. But as I drew on the board I decided to go for a slightly creepier look, maybe because of Halloween?

Illustration Friday Wind

ballpoint pen and colored pencil

Concerts are a lovely time to doodle. At a recent one I sketched this take on the velveteen rabbit.

Here is another picture from a sketchbook. Used a sharpie marker, white gouache, and a bit of photoshop.

Here are two cats that have recently appeared on my website. Doodling with a ballpoint pen is an amazing activity. I sometimes feel a little frightened when starting a new piece, and the more money I have invested in the materials, the more I'll procrastinate. When you have these wonderful materials to work with, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the magic is not in the materials, the magic is in the artist. So it is a lovely thing to pick up a regular ol' ball point pen and let it go. So free! So easy!