Well my little flu case is feeling pretty good today... but the school doesn't allow kids to come back to school the day after they get sent home with a fever. With all the flu going around it is a good rule, but bored little 6 year olds who are missing their Halloween party at school are not that fun to be around!

But look! I got it finished except for sealing it first with a colorless blender and varnishing.
I am also trying to decide if I should erase some of the background and add another lantern on the left side? Take a look at the next picture and see where I copied and pasted an extra lantern... it wouldn' be an exact copy like that but it just shows that space filled. Should I? Maybe it looks better without the arrangement perfect like in the first photo?

& I wanted to talk a little more about the composition. It had a little problem from the start since the chinese lanterns are so tall and the other objects are so much lower. At first actually I had some artificial lanterns from the client... but those proved to be way too tall when I got back to the studio and looked at the photos I took at the client's house, so I went out and got some real ones. Much better fit then... and I just had to move a couple lanterns when I drew it and delete one and it was a good arrangement... nature somehow usually works!

The lanterns are still pretty tall though... and the other objects pretty short. So to fit it all and stick around the size the client originally asked for, I had to put the whole arrangement lower on the board than I usually do. It doesn't look great, until you put on a faux frame which visually lengthens the bottom of the composition. :-)

Back to Autumn and portrait commission finished

Remember I said that the autumn still-life was put on hold? Well there was a little misunderstanding in the initial instructions which is a little humorous. I was told it should have some gourds, a jack-o-lantern in a white pitcher, a pumpkin, some chinese lanterns and maybe flowers. Well I did think the jack-o-lantern in a vase was a little odd... and soon found out it was supposed to be chinese lanterns in a pitcher! Too funny. I do like some of the compositions I came up with with a pumpkin in the pitcher though!

Anyway, the client lent me her majolica pitcher for the chinese lanterns and here is where I'm at. Actually I got a little further than this today but didn't take another photo.

& I have some good newsand some bad news... I am going to be able to work on this tomorrow and tentatively finish it... the bad news - I have the time towork on it tomorrow because my six year old has the flu and I can't go to work because I will be home with her. So I brought home my supplies and while she's vegging on the couch, I'll hopefully have this finished.

Below is my portrait tromp l'oeil comission. Its finished except for the okay from the client. Enjoy!

No update... just a pic of me working on it... I'll have an update next week.

& I wanted to show you the piece I had commissioned from Paula Pertile... all framed up! You saw it last year... but it has taken me a year to finally have it framed. I wish I could find the post I made about it last year so you can see it better, but blogger search function is not working!

I went alllll out with the frame with the help of Creative Encounters in Keene. They do such a good job interpreting what you want and then making that vision look good.

I commissioned Paula to make a drawing of a fantasy art studio - like it was in a Harry Potter book. Paula went all out too and made such an amazing illustration. I have it hung right above where I work at my studio so I can see it while working. :-)

Update and pumpkins

Here is an update on the portrait commission. I think I owe it an explanation. The client had his and his wife's school photos from 2nd grade.. and asked if I cold draw him pushing her on a swing or something. It wasn't really possible with the little frontal view school portraits so I said no... but I could make a tromp l'oiel with the school photos on a desk with some kid stuff along with them. I asked him what he and his wife were into as kids and incorporated them on the table. I kept the 70's feel of the faded photographs and added a harvest gold tabletop.

The result: one wacky looking non-traditional portrait! I love it... but I have a very warped sense of humour. My favorite part is where the lines above the bee logo match up with the kick lines from snoopy. :-) Oh and the glue heart... who wouldn't like that?

There's loads to do still... and right before I left the studio today I messed up her poor little chin! It will be fixed tomorrow.

I have so much less time lately that while I was waiting for my paper to be mounted to a board by Creative Encounters, I started one of the compositions from that autumn movie I posted.

new Commission and pics from show with Gary Ruuska

The autumn commission is put on hold until next week, so I started another commission - this one a portrait/still-life. All I have finished is a transferred line drawing. It really is a still-life that borders on tromp l'oiel. In it are two school portraits from the 70's and a bunch of kid's craft stuff. There are a few objects thrown in that the people depicted in the photographs liked at that age. Wow, it looks kind of weird at this stage... :-)

This piece is both fun and scary to make. I really dislike doing teeny portraits and this one has 2 small ones in it. I have nothing against small portraits - its just that one small milimeter of a mistake can change the likeness. It is much easier to do something around life-size.

& I owe you all some photographsfrom my show with Gary Ruuskain Jaffrey,NH! His work are the wonderful still-lifes and architecture pieces below. He also has gorgeous botanicals in the show, so this is just a sampling from theshow. My work, of course, are the portraits... in the show I have 14 portraits including my Zen piece (which isn't in these photos).

Autumn Commission

the joy of still-life...

this is what I did today... set up autumn still-lifes and photographed them for a client's approval.

It looked fun in my viewfinder so I made it into a movie.

if it is not working above, you can see it on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID07qenzX-w

What I worked on during the open studio...

I like to work on portraits for demonstrations... because there is something magical about watching a face slowly appear from a piece of paper. So I did this portrait of my friend Maggie's son Will. She said I captured his smile well - so I am really happy. Getting the expression right is very important to me when doing a portrait. Its not getting it to look like "a smile" or "a scowl" etc that is important... its about getting an expression that the sitter would make. If you give them a smile they just don't make - then to the person's friends and family it won't look like them. You won't have a good likeness.

To be able to get the expression right, I rely very heavily on not just the features but how those features connect. If the corners of the mouth are up a little, for instance, the cheeks will be raised, as well as the lower eye lids.

On another note - I picked up copy of James Gurney's new book "Imaginative Realism" recently. I am a big fan of Dinotopia and his amazing blog where he shares loads of painting/illustration information. When I saw a listing for his book in an art magazine - I wanted it because I thought it could be helpful for teaching my kids at school for when they want to draw imaginary things... but boy is it a great book. First of all - it is eye candy.... which is a must have for art books in my opinion. If there aren't loads of good artwork to see in it, I don't want it. Next he puts it to the reader plain and simple - you have no doubt after looking at it that you will have to work hard to make a realistic imaginary thing... not only use creativity. You will need to do research, use models and perhaps even make models for imaginary creatures, etc. There is also just plain old good advice for painters in there too about composition, lighting etc.

I found the pages on what he calls "the windmill principle" really interesting. Actually you can read it on his blog... http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/04/windmill-principle.html

as well as flagging the head http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/05/flagging-head.html