n2cre8n

Drawing An Eye

When I used to draw more than paint, I always chose portraits.  Eyes are still my favorite thing to draw.  This is a beautiful and quick video tutorial by Mark Crilley.

 

Horse Painting gift

1. My mom's birthday was coming

2. I had been sketching horses a lot

3. I told my mom I would make her a custom iPhone case (months ago) from a piece of artwork I made

SO . . . 

I got this idea to do a practice painting for my daughter's bedroom (see previous post) and make something for my mom.  My acrylic painting class instructor showed me photos of other artists that had added color into animal paintings.  My favorite artist was Laurie Pace. I was instantly hooked and had to try it. Here are some of her paintings.

I chose my favorite sketch and drew it over and over until I had it the way I liked it.

Then I cleaned it up in Photoshop, printed it out, and used my projector to make it the exact size I wanted it on my piece of plywood (w/ 2 coats of gesso).

I wanted my personal touch on the background, so I did my tradition steps of paste texture and added some drywall and masking tape.

I started with some typical shade of brown that you would see on a horse.

Then painted my background shade of blue (my mom's favorite color).

Here comes color!

And here is how it ended up online, as the iPhone case was in progress!  I have uploaded several jpegs of artwork for custom cell phone cases and Case-Mate does an awesome job!  

 

Then I played around with some close up shots, using my 50mm 2.8/f lens.  

I love the short depth of field it will give me.

This might be a new favorite painting style - I got to combine drawing, texture, bright colors, and I learned a lot!

 

Sketching Horses

Sketching at the beach . . . ya, that didn't suck! : )

Right behind me is my son's middle school and I had been there doing a photography workshop.  It was my day to carpool, so I had an hour to kill and took my sketchbook.

My daughter is a horse LOVER!  She takes riding lessons once per week and it has become her passion.  We re-painted her bedroom this summer and rearranged the furniture.  She and her dad are off to pick up her new bed as I type.  

So, above her bed, I told her I'd do a painting for her if she wanted one.  She said, "A horse!"  

Naturally.  I knew this was coming, but was kind of intimidated by it also.

So I began with these sketches.  I haven't drawn a horse since high school art class, so I needed some practice.

I printed some pics from online, ripped a page from a magazine, and used a horse coloring book my mom sent to my kids years ago.  

And I drew horses.