New Ideas and Lessons Learned

My apologies for forgetting to post since early November! From now on I will just post whenever I feel like it. There's a lot to cover since November, so I'll keep it brief.

This was my midterm for my Drawing I class done in conte crayon. Now I'm in Drawing II, so be expecting some more Drawing class work.

This one is a large graphite pencil drawing done using the grid method, also drawn in Drawing I.
Next are some photos I took of puppies at Christmas. I'm so happy with how they turned out!

The top and bottom pictures I took in front of the Christmas trees. All of them were taken with natural lighting as well as a reflector.

This acrylic painting of a horse's eye was just for practice. I didn't think it looked very good. I shared it on facebook, and I was so surprised by all of the wonderful comments. Shows how sometimes I should just stop being stressed about making it look perfect and just have fun doing it.

Here is a recent acrylic painting I did, titled "Fury". The top picture is the reference photo (LP Landry Photography) free for artists' use. The horse is a Paint stallion named CW River of Gold. I saw an idea on Pinterest of using Super Sculpey clay and acrylic modeling paste to add some 3D art onto a canvas. I had the idea of a clay rose and horse painting for a long time. I ordered the supplies special for it. I found this reference photo and got the idea for this painting. I wanted to convey the horse's spirit, the fierceness, the strength, the fury. That's why I chose the red background, and I'm glad I did, because it really makes the horse pop. I love to do the drippy, messy background and it was the perfect technique for this painting. I'm not quite sure what made the idea of black roses pop into my head, but there was so much going on in the background that I did not want to distract any more from the horse. I'm very happy that they turned out looking pretty realistic. Black and red is a good color scheme to communicate fury as well. I was a little discouraged at first, thinking it wasn't turning out very well, but as I went on it was getting better and better. By the time I started painting the mane, I knew this would be my best painting yet. I have found that my best paintings come from not only trying to show the subject, but what the subject is feeling.

Here is my favorite charcoal drawing, also of CW River of Gold. It is 18x24". These last two pieces, as well as the drawing of the little girl and my other acrylic painting of a Pintabian, will be entered in the Vasaloppet Art Show, it's a local show coming up very soon. They will be for sale, and if "Fury" doesn't sell there, I've already got a buyer lined up for it.

And finally, here is a drawing that I did today on my new tan drawing paper, with black and white charcoal. 11x14", for sale. I was also thinking this one wasn't going to look very good but when I finished, I liked it a lot. I am my worst critic... at times it makes me feel like I'll never get past my weaknesses with drawing, painting, and photography. Like I'll never be good enough. But, at other times it makes me strive to practice very hard to improve, and nothing can stop me, not even my own doubts.

Now, I need to stop getting new ideas for now and just do all of the commissions that I have to do...

Thanks for reading!