Illustration Friday Topic-Winter

I did this image a while ago. A bit of a whimsical take on winter and all the little creatures that inhabit the landscape. Our winter is a bit different. We are getting rain. Winter means green. I did however live in the white stuff for quite a few years. I like looking at pictures of it. Happy Holidays to all.

Illustration Friday Topic-Mail

I did this illustration a while ago as part of a story idea I was putting together. It is done in oils on illustration board. I think it fits the Illustration topic, mail. I had fun creating the characters.

Illustration Friday Topic-Phenomenon

I thought considering the time of year that this image would be a good choice to represent the topic phenomenon. This was a really fun piece to paint. I love painting both animals and Santa so it seemed like a good combo at the time. Hey, they are both at the North Pole so why not?

Illustration Friday Topic-Prehistoric

I thought it might be fun to think of those toy dinosaurs coming to life. Image having a 5" T Rex as your birthday gift after the paper has been torn off.

Illustration Friday Topic-Savour

During the holidays there are all kinds of wonderful treats to savour. Anything chocolate fits the category in my mind.

Santa Flags and Mailbox Cover

I received my samples for flags and a mailbox cover with my Santa Image on it. I figured it is okay to go ahead and put them up. The stores have had Christmas things out for months now. (and it's fun decorating for the holiday.) Almost done with all my shopping and will be shipping things out across the country soon.

Illustration Friday Topic-Burning

This image seems appropriate for the Illustration Friday topic, Burning. This is on gessoed board in oils and was really fun to paint.

Illustration Friday-Afterwards

For the Illustration Friday topic. This is the image that I thought exemplified afterwards. Afterwards a delicious lunch of pureed peas.

Spoonflower woodland animals entry

Spoonflower is a really great sight that has some fabulous patterns. You can create your own patterns and have fabric made. They also have contests. This is my entry for the the woodland animal contest. You can go to the site if you would like to vote.
http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters/new?contest_id=53#conpage7

IF Racing

Here is an image for Illustration Friday's topic, Racing.

Open Studio Artists

Yesterday I went with my friend Diane to some Open Studios in Santa Cruz. We went to the gallery at the Art League first where there was a piece from each of the artist's up. There were some really wonderful pieces in all kinds of medium. There were glass, metal, and ceramic 3-d pieces as well as some really good paintings.
We also went to the tannery. It was the first time I had been there. It was interesting. There are apartments and studios for artists there, so there were several studios. One of the studios there was Cheryle Winn's. She has some beautiful quilts. Her sense of color is really lovely in the pieces she had. I will post a couple of pictures of some of her work here.
Another artist that we saw at her home studio was Sandra Cherk. She lived in Greece for a while and you can see that influence in some of here work. She had several pastel landscapes and was also selling jewelry. She has a website at www.sandracherk.com. I will also put up piece of hers.
We also saw a watercolorist that I really liked a lot. She has a wonderful sense of color and her images are beautiful. Her name is Gwen Davin Revino. I took photos of two of my favorite pieces that she did and will put those up here as well. She has a website as well. www.gwenrevino.com.
It is fun to see what others are doing, and amazing to see the diversity. This area is really loaded with lots of talented people.

Flag Samples Came

It's always interesting to see how your images end up looking on product. It's also fun to get your product samples. The horse flag came and is up. In the mean time I am painting away trying to get new contracts for licensing. I have been a bit pattern crazy lately and have been sending my agent a multitude of designs. It's fun taking elements from my art and creating something totally new.

Kittens Flag The Catalog Page

Here is how it looks as a flag on the catalog page for the Spring /Summer of 2011.

Kittens

I thought it would be interesting to see how an old image was transformed for a new product. The original art is from a card I did for Sunrise years ago. With the help of photoshop I added more flowers to the background and changed the color of one of the kittens. I also worked up the color overall. Here is the before and after.

Catalog Page

Here is the catalog page for the bunny image. The color looks pretty saturated here. I think they do this so the images look really bright in the catalog. It is nice to have a full page for this.

For Next Spring!

Here is another bunny image that will be a flag for next spring. This image was done in watercolors. It was a mix of Dr. Martins dyes and watercolor which give me really nice vibrant color. I like doing images that have a clear foreground, middle ground and background. I think it helps give depth to the piece. I had been to a conference where Kadir Nelson spoke and this was something he spoke about in his work. His work is so incredible and I really like how he uses space in his work. I took that idea and put it into my own images.

Humane Society International Image

I recently painted an image of a harp seal pup in oils. It has been chosen to be a card for the Humane Society International organization. I really love having my work go to places that do so much to help animals and am very pleased that the image was chosen.

Inside Catalog Page

My horse image also got a nice half page inside the catalog.

Catalog Cover

I just got the catalog from the Flag Company that I have been working with. My Santa image is on the cover!

Begonia Festival Poster Entry

Well here is the image that I did as an entry for the Begonia Festival Poster. Alas it did not win, however my licensing agent sold it and two other images for prints on canvas. All in all I am pretty happy.

The Great Chair Take Over

Well, It doesn't look like I'll get much work done on the computer for now. I did send a revised manuscript for my picture book to an agent in NY that has shown interest. I had to do it standing up though.