An Unruly Haired Fairy

My sketches have been taking me a bit longer these days. I just find myself getting lost in details, but I'm so happily lost that I can't really get angry with myself.
It's much like losing oneself in the woods, because you are enjoying the wildflowers growing underfoot or the various wildlife that you see scurrying about.
It sort of reminds me of my childhood when I would spend hours playing in the woods while imagining all of the fantastical fairy creatures that I just knew were hiding from me at that very moment. My latest 'adventure in the woods' brought about this sketch of a rather unruly haired fairy.

I think that she and I would have gotten along quite well. (especially when I was a child)

A Portrait with Plumeria Blossoms

I enjoyed drawing my Cherry Blossom portrait so much (Click here to see my blog post showing this piece) that I decided to do another portrait. I was having some trouble deciding upon a flower to use for this one so I asked people on my facebook page to come up with some suggestions. The winning suggestion was plumeria. I had never heard of this flower but fell in love with it's lovely shape and beautiful color immediately.

Something that I had played around with for the first time in my Cherry Blossom portrait was the idea of keeping the portrait in black and white while adding a pop of color with the flowers. I added the color using Adobe Photoshop Elements. I enjoyed the final look so much that I decided to try it on this one as well, though the colors of the plumeria blossoms are MUCH more complex and I have never been very adept at photoshop.

This is the original black and white portrait done in graphite

Here is the portrait with the plumeria blossoms painted.

Which do you prefer?

Shall I continue on with this series? 

If I do continue with it, which flower do you think that I should incorporate in my next piece?

From the Land of Faeries to Mermaids...

This week I've started working on my Sketch of the Day series again. I took a slight hiatus, but am back on track now. I'm not sure why, but my mind has been particularly filled with images of faeries lately. Just lots of wings flying about in my head! The only exception is the last one in this blog post. After so many faeries I threw in a mermaid just for fun.

As expected, some sketches I like better than others, but I am trying not to dwell on that as much. This series is about creating, not about creating masterpieces! I always find myself focusing too much on being a perfectionist and have thrown away countless pieces because of it!

 

April 30th, 2014

 

May 1st, 2014

 

May 2nd, 2014

 

May 3rd, 2014

 

 

Are you your own worst critic? We often hear that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' ,but do we apply this concept to our art? I have often found that when I post a piece that I'm not particularly satisfied with, I receive a comment from someone who is moved by, or in love with the piece. For this reason, I ignore my own inner struggles with my pieces and just post them anyway. I create with the hope that I will give someone a bit of joy, hope or beauty and that's not always going to come from the pieces that I think they should.

 

To see more of my Sketch a Day series, check out my blog post 'Practice Makes Perfect'.

Mermaids Here, There and Everywhere

I have recently received a commission to do a painting of a woman's two daughters as mermaids. She actually doesn't really care for the mermaids to look exactly like her daughters. She's more interested in them having the same characteristics as her daughters. (one has black hair, one brown, one has freckles, etc.)

I have been itching to do a mermaid painting for quite awhile so I am eager to get started on this piece. I went to my client's house and saw the girl's rooms and saw the sorts of things that make them different from each other. One is a bit of a tomboy while the other is a little more girly. My client also  showed me some pictures of her daughters including one where her youngest daughter is at the beach making a sand castle and one where her eldest daughter has a butterfly on her nose. I always try to include personal touches in my commissioned pieces, so I decided to incorporate the butterfly, possibly the sand castle and even the eldest daughter's pet corn snake wherever possible.

I usually begin creating as many different concept sketches as I can. Various angles, poses, even themes until I find the three that I like the best. Here are the concept sketches that I have developed so far for this painting. After I choose the final three that I like best, I will move on to choosing color schemes and then I will present the final three concepts to the client so that she can decide on which painting she would like me to complete for her. I find it best to limit the number of choices that you give a client. More than three choices can easily become overwhelming.

My first concept sketch for this commission was done while at work. I used whatever I had around me, which ended up being a blue pen and yellow and blue highlighters on a scrap piece of ruled paper

  The girls like to be together, but they don't necessarily like playing together. As such, having one brushing the other's hair isn't really in keeping with their personality's, but I really like the idea anyway as it's more in keeping with what mermaids would do.

 

            I fit the eldest girl's pet corn snake in this one, though I will
probably fit him in whichever design my client finally chooses.

 

In this one I was playing around with the idea of the girls being on different rocks and therefore at different levels in the painting. I also like the idea of one girl lying down.

 

       In this sketch I fit in the youngest daughter's sand castle.

I'm still trying to decide which three I like best. Which are your favorites? I'm excited to start cleaning up these designs and adding colors. It's always a lot of fun to come up with new paintings though it's a bit stressful when you have a client to please.

Busy November!

Good morning everyone! Yet again, I have been remiss in my blogging duties. No matter how much work I do, I never seem to get finished with my to-do list!

Here are some things that have been happening as well as things that are coming up in the future...
The cold that I had when I was writing my last blog post ended up being a super bug from hell. I had the most horrific coughing fits and ended up pulling a muscle in my side and pinched a nerve in my neck because of them! My doctor prescribed an antibiotic, steroid, antihistamine and decongestant all in one fell swoop. I've never been on so many drugs in all my life! Needless to say, each one seemed to have it's own special brand of side effects that ended up making me feel much worse until I finally started to feel like myself again.

ook about 2 weeks out of my life where I barely had the energy to get out of bed let alone go to the day job and get artwork done. However, I still managed to get to my burlesketch sessions. Here are a few drawings from the first one that we had. All of the poses were no more than 20 minutes so you really had to work quickly!

Because of Halloween, the theme was a naughty witch. Very fun to draw!

Some other projects that I have going on right now are about three portrait drawings, one painting and one pair of custom earrings. I am also working as the costume designer for a photo shoot in L.A. that my talented friend, Drew Bates, hired me for. I'll be working long distance helping him with a fun 1950s look.

< If you are going to be in the South Florida area Dec. 2nd and 3rd, I will also be at the Palm Beach Gardens Holiday Art Show. There is always a nice turn out and it should be lots of fun!

I hope to be better about blogging more regularly, but we know how well this usually turns out... Anyway, I hope that you have a fantastic week and I will be sharing some new artwork soon!

Your creatively overwhelmed artsy friend, Rebecca.

Hidden Faces

Ever since I was a child I have always found faces in things. Faces in tree bark, the sides of mountains, etc. It used  to be something that I did naturally, then it became a game that I would play and now it's back to being something that I do subconsciously. Perhaps it's the Brian Froud in me. He often illustrates goblin faces in rocks, trees, etc.

I follow the amazing talent of Carne Griffiths on DeviantArt.com and recently saw a hidden face in his piece entitled "New Light"  As Mr. Griffiths couldn't see the hidden face that I had found, I decided to circle the face and post it here. Can anyone else see what I am talking about? It's a man/goblin/gnome with his eyes closed and a rather long nose.

I love finding things like this in works of art. If you do too, then definitely check out Al Hirschfeld's work as he always incorporated at least one NINA in his pieces. (The name of his daughter)