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