A fabric project

Each year the Town and Country Decorative Painters makes a painted quilt to support our annual retreat. The quilt always follows the theme of the retreat. The theme for the 2009 retreat is Painting Safari. Each square of the quilt is to be decorated with the likeness of a jungle critter. I was assigned a parrot. The design on my square is a Macaw. The retreat committee provides the fabric. This year there is a leaf design on the fabric. The square is painted using DecoArt So-Soft fabric paint. The parrot is painted as a vignette. That is, the edge just fades off rather than being a hard, finished edge or including the whole bird.

A difficult subject

A Visit to the Aquarium

5x7

colored pencil on Bristol Plate (smooth)

The challenge in this little piece is the aquarium lighting. Everything in the picture has a blue tint. To achieve this, after the little boy was completed, I applied a light wash of blue over him. The whale was rendered using various blue pencils in addition to the white and black so that it would have the blue glow that was in the photograph. See if you can find the lost edges on the whale.

When I am ready to frame this piece, I think I am going to mat it down to about 3.5x4 so that it will be eligible for submission to a miniature show.

Pet Portrait

I am doing a lot of pet portraits in colored pencil these days. I work from photos and create a line drawing by scanning the photo and sizing it to the size I want my finished piece to be and then tracing the essential elements of the portrait. Of course, the skill is in translating the color, markings, and expression of the animal into a well-painted portrait. If you are interested in having a colored pencil portrati painted of your precious pet, go to my website and you will find ordering information.

This little portrait is taken from a photo of my friend's cat, Ziggy. It is approximately 3x3 and is painted on brown card stock. The portrait is on top and the reference photo is at the bottom of the page.

Another HOOT project

To fill in a little time, I took a class that used fabric paint on a denim tote bag. Nothing much new in this class. It was just a nice little project to keep busy on that particular day.

More from HOOT

Here is another HOOT project. This one is colored pencil on sand paper--that's right, 400 grit sand paper! The project is very nice, but sand paper will eat up your pencils. This piece will mat to about 6x8. It is done in browns and white so that it has a sepia-tone look. By the way, the cup is not crooked, the photo is. I will need to take another picture with the surface sitting is a better position.

HOOT Convention

Every August the Heart of Ohio Tole Painters holds a large convention in Columbus, OH. At this convention, you can take classes, shop at the trade show, and attend demos of techniques and products. My friend and I attended the convention last week from Wednesday until Saturday. I took a few classes and had a chance to visit with friends from far away. Here is a photo of one of the classes I took. This yellow rose was taught by Pat Lentine. It is done in pastels on Mi-Tientes paper using layering and blending techniques. The size is approximately 14x16.

Testing My Skills

I tried my first colored pencil portrait today. It is far from perfect, but for a first attempt, I am not unhappy. A little work on the skin tones and the eyes will make a huge improvement in the finished work. With some more practice, I will be painting quite respectable portraits. Here is the pencil portrait and the original photo from which I was working. The size is approximately 3x3.