Commissioned Painting

I recently had art up at a cafe in Santa Cruz. A woman contacted me after seeing a print of a horse painting I had done that was there. She was curious as to if I did commissions. I wrote her back and didn't hear from her, so figured she had changed her mind. A week later her husband contacted me and commissioned me to do a painting for her for Christmas. I've been painting like crazy since. A couple of days ago I got another e-mail from his wife saying that she was still interested and would contact me after the holidays. She is in for a big surprise!

Here is the finished art. I am taking it to the framer in the morning. The ordered frame is in, and the woman's husband is meeting me there to pick it up.

Coming This Spring

Here's my new flag design that will be coming out this spring. The original is in watercolor. I love painting animals, so it's nice to see this one on product. I am also happy to see that it is shown so nicely in the company's catalog.

Work in Progress

I am working on a new painting of a woman from Senegal cooking. The first image is just laying down color after the sketch was complete. I am working with cool colors (blues and purples) in the white to contrast with the warmth of her skin. I also really love the contrast of the white against her dark skin.

The second image shows going in to pull out some more detail in some areas. I still have a lot to do on this, but thought I'd show the stages as I go along.

Art Up

I just put a variety of prints and originals up at the Seabreeze Cafe in Santa Cruz. I decided to hang a few animal images and some of the food images. If you're in the area stop in. They are on Seabright. They also have really good food!

Licensing

I've been very busy creating product sheets for licensing some of my images. This helps to show potential buyers what my work would look like on their products. I then send them to my licensing agent and she can show them to the buyers. It's been fun playing in photoshop to create these. I recently got the new version , cs4 and am really liking it. I also got a new mac with a larger screen which has been really nice. With my old mac I was never sure if I turned it off if it would come back on again. ( a definite sign that a new one was in order) On top of that I got a new wacom pad. I am left handed, and I love that I could set this up so the controls worked for me. I was always bumping the controls on the old one, and things would either blow up or decrease in size suddenly. The wheel for sizing on the new one is pretty cool too.

Furniture

I went through a period where I was painting furniture in the house .  It started with a bookcase, and sort of branched off from there. I got the idea to do a screen, then a cabinet. The cabinet I found at a garage sale. I did them all in a similar style. It was fun and now they are all functional in my house. I like doing them, but as far as doing more to sell ???...I'm not sure how I would market them. 

Illustration Friday -Contagious

This is an image that I think fits the contagious theme in that laughter is contagious. It was inspired by my grandmother and her sister. When they would get together they would just laugh and laugh! I did it for a picture book that is still in the process of rewrites. 

 Postage went up again this week, so I got a few more postcards sent out to publishers last week.

I thought I was being really smart and using up the stamps I had left, only to find on Monday that I had another roll. This is the most recent postcard. Guess I'll be visiting the post office for penny stamps.

Illustration Friday -Parade

Spring!

I took a couple of pictures of my garden. Everything is so colorful right now. I also thought I'd put up one of my floral images. This is actually a watercolor. I've been mostly working in oils lately, and haven't been doing many florals. This was a bit of a departure. Most of my florals have a soft look. I wanted to go with some bolder, brighter colors here. I think it is more indicative of the colors I've been painting with lately.

Children's Art Realistic

I also thought I would work on some pieces that could fit more of the YA and MG markets. I love painting people and these were great to work on.
I did use photo refererences for these. I have a friend with a young teen and he and 10 of his friends showed up to have their pics taken. It was really fun and was like something out of Peter Pan with all these boys climbing the tree. It was good for me to work on something with an unusual perspective.
On the painting of the girl with the box, I wanted to have a really natural and dramatic light source.
Patti

Open Studio-Art

This past fall I decided to do Open Studios with the Cultural Arts Center in Santa Cruz. It was an interesting experience. I met a lot of people from the area and ended up with a large project from one of the visitors. I have also been hanging things locally and actually have work at Pacific Thai in Santa Cruz for the month of April.
The paintings in Open Studios are different from the commercial work. I like working on projects that push me to do things that I find difficult. The apple in the water is one such painting. I wanted the challenges of working with a bright natural light source as well as the distortion of objects in the water and the glass shape distorting the apple. The pears were interesting to me in that I was working with the silver and the reflections.
I also had a large canvas that I decided to do the horse painting on. I usually work smaller on my drawing table, so this was a departure for me.
I like working on different kinds of projects. It keeps things fresh and interesting for me.
Patti

Product Work

I have been doing work in the gift industry for several years. I thought I'd just post a few of the images that have been published. I have done a ton of Santas. I like painting people and older people have really interesting faces. I've also done more whimsical images. I like painting animals and have done a lot of floral images as well.
Patti

What I've been doing til now.

My friend and fabulous artist Frank told me I really needed to get a blog. Ta dah. Today is the first post. I thought I'd do a bit of back pedaling to show what I've been up to up til now. I'll start with an assignment I received a couple of years ago to create an image that the United States Humane Society could use for their holiday cards to donors. I was to incorporate pets, farm animals and wildlife. I had been doing some work in waterbased oils and used those for this piece. I was really surprised to find out that the art director submitted it to several design competitions, and that it received awards. I really loved working on it , and it is an organization I really admire. All of our animals have been rescues.
Patti