A Mile of Spaghetti

This is the topic of a sketchbook assignment I have for my students this weekend. I was coaching the Academic Decathlon Regional Meet this weekend and had some extra time, so I thought I'd do my own assignment.

Watercolor & Sharpie

Illustration Friday-Focused

Sneak Peek

I am working on a logo for my blog. Here's a sneak peek of a rough draft...

Triptych

A friend of mine from church wanted a painting for her dining room. She wanted a triptych made of tall skinny pieces for a specific spot on a dark red wall. She gave me general colors and free reign. 

Here is the beginning of the process.

I really struggled with the color of the background.  It changed several times because I knew I wanted a lighter color to contrast with the red wall, but I didn't want it to look too pink. I think the right one is the actual background. 

It took me a while to decide what to do because the breaks between the canvas is where I normally tend to put the subject matter (Rule of Thirds) so this was more of a challenge. But I was up for it! After I made the Christmas painting for my sister-in-law, I decided I liked that imagery and decided to use some of the same ideas. 

Here is the only picture I have before the final product.

I could have sworn that I took more pictures of the in-between stages, but I cant seem to find them. The brown/orange vase on the left was originally a yellow bowl, but it looked too much like a banana to me, so I changed it. My friend suggested a flower on that side, so I made it a vase. The top right was too empty, so I though I'd try another flower. It looks too stiff to me though. So...

This is the final look (I couldn't decide which picture to use, so I used them both!) The right flower disappeared and the edges are painted dark brown like the table thingie.

Enjoy, my friend! Love ya!

Online Art Auction

One of my art students has created an Online Art Auction to raise money for Lafora research.  She decided to combine her passion for her friend and her passion for the arts and created this site.  To see her take time out of her busy schedule to create this website, manage it, and deliver/mail all the pieces personally just astonishes me.

I have donated a few pieces for her site and have a few more in the works. Here are a few of my donated paintings that I have done recently. 

I hope you'll take time to check out her site and bid on a piece if you see something you like. She updates it often, so bookmark it and check back soon.

If you are crafty and creative and would like to donate your own artwork for Lafora research, please email Diana at dianaantohe@gmail.com. She accept anything handmade, in any medium, and of all sizes.

Christmas Paintings

This is a painting I made for my sister-in-law as a Christmas present. I really wanted to play with texture, since it's not what I normally tend to do. It's there, you just can't really tell in the picture.

This is about half way through the painting. Boy am I am glad I went with a black background! What was I thinking?!

This is a detail of the painting I made for my mother-in-law as a Christmas present. She loves blue!

Rabbit Trails

My husband tells me that I go on too many rabbit trails when we have, you know, discussions, but why should that be limited to just our conversations?

I've started a blog, mainly about art, but already want to go on a rabbit trail with a story about our new pets.

Lucy is our yellow lab who was born at the beginning of Oct, 2009. She's about 25 Lbs. Molly is our tabby cat who was born at the end of Oct, 2009 and she's only about 4 Lbs. Aren't they cute!?

We currently leave Molly in my studio over night, while we are at work, and well, generally most of the day for a variety of reasons. Mostly safety from Lucy. Last night though we decided to open her door and give her freedom for a bit while we crated Lucy and left for an errand.

When we got home, everything seemed to be OK. Molly greeted us at the door. Lucy was waiting patiently for us to visit her. I went to let Lucy out of the crate and to let Daniel take her outside, when I noticed something inside the crate that was not there when we left.

I picked up the unrecognizable object and was flabbergasted.

It was my glove (or what was left of it).

I had received a new pair of gloves for my birthday last month and was using them to walk Lucy when it was cold out, so I'd keep them on top of her crate by her leash. To give you an idea of the damage, here's the glove that Lucy couldn't get to.

Turns out Molly loves to get up on the dog bed that's on top of the crate (I'll explain in a minute) and play with the basket of toys, towels, and gloves. While we were gone she had played with the glove and managed to get it close enough for Lucy to pull through the crate.

It's literally been eaten. Not just chewed up. All the (fake) leather is completely gone (aka ingested) except for the pinky. The cotton lining is still there, but pretty torn up. Luckily the brass buckle managed to get wedged next to the crate and was out of site and could not be ingested (But I guarantee it would have been).

Luckily, this is the only item (so far) to have been completely ruined. There is a tiny hole in the corner of our ottoman though and also a small one in her dog bed (which is why it's up on the crate and currently not in use.)

So to all you who I have spoken with and explained how tired I am and how much work this puppy is, here's my proof! We LITERALLY can't take our eyes off those puppy teeth.