The Iris, or Fleur-de-Lis

This flower holds a special meaning for me, not just because of its beauty but also because of its symbolism as the flower of my college sorority, KKG. I was very excited to see that the instructor had brought in a bunch for us to paint. Again this is from my pure water color class. Rather than paint the whole lot of iris' in the vase, I decided to focus on just one iris, or fleur-de-lis. This is mainly because I seem to be a rather slow painter and like to focus on one thing at a time. I didn't finish the painting during the class (surprise!), but learned about its form and colors in the process of drawing and painting it. Off with their heads!

The Pear

I fondly refer to this piece as my 'turbo pear'. It's another work created in my pure watercolor class at the SMFA. As with the other pieces I am posting, I like to include my pencil sketches to see the process and progress. The pear started out being a bit delicate and subtle and then I added too dark (Payne's gray I believe) shadowing which gave it a beefy/muscular and dramatic look. Hungry?

Apples

Well, this certainly is the longest I've been away. I have since finished my last class at the SMFA in the illustration certificate program and am working on my portfolio (slowly, admittedly). The class and instructor were great and I would love to take another class with her since I feel I need much practice in this method of watercolor painting. I am going to explore mixed media and collage art over the coming months as I create a portfolio, and also rework my children's book concept/dummy that I started in last spring's children's book illustration class.

I am posting the pieces I worked on this summer in the pure watercolor class and will try to post all of them over the coming weeks. Here I selected a New Zealand apple that was very stripey (too much so). The task at hand: sketch in pencil your subject (always), paint the subject in a monotone color (in this case blue), and then paint the subject using the pure watercolor method (yellow-red-blue-green-etc ... one color at a time, as appropriate for the subject). This was a learning experience and I will go back to this striped subject again in the future and try to make it softer.

I am always looking for inspiration from established illustrators and recently discovered this children's book illustrator who has a beautiful hand at creating whimsical and interesting children's book art. Check him out: Rob Scotton. See you soon!

A Nectarine

It's been awhile since my last post I see and I'm happy to report that my first watercolor class (and last class in my illustration certificate program), Pure Watercolor Painting, started this past week. So I am showing the work from Wednesday's class here. The still life was fruit and I selected a nectarine to paint, mostly because I am very drawn to the colors in it -reds and yellows. We did a quick sketch first then later got into the painting. I did not do a sketch of the nectarine prior to painting it -I went straight into the painting. It received a positive review from the instructor, Katherine Finnegan, who by the way is just great -and I really like her painting style. She is possibly the best instructor so far from all the classes I've taken -yes, I can tell this by just one class. She is also connected to Kaji Aso Studio, which might be the next place I enroll for a painting class. Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!

World Watch Magazine

In keeping with the spot illustration theme, here are two of the three spots I created for a project assignment in my portfolio prep class this spring semester based on short articles for World Watch Magazine. None of my illustrations were selected (wha...wha...wha) for print but it was fun creating these and submitting them for possible publication. The ones that were selected were really good and very creative. I'll keep at it and maybe someday I'll get something published.

Us or Me

These spot illustrations are from a class I took spring '07, created for a snippet from a story about a runaway balloon and rescuers getting into trouble in the process of recapturing it. I didn't really like the story, too troubling. Anyway, for what it's worth I am posting these two B+W spots to show the variety of the work I've done while in school. Lots of experimenting with new media (for me) and trying to capture the essence of a story visually. Not sure this was very successful but here it is anyway. Draw on.

Felix & Koko

This is a cut paper creation of my cats Felix and Koko. I wrote a children's story involving them and plan to rework my story dummy and create more finished pieces. I am just not sure yet if I want to create the story completely in cut paper. Perhaps mixed media is how I'll go but I need to do some more experimenting in the coming weeks. There is more to the picture at top -more curtain- but my scanner isn't big enough to capture all of it. I'll post more as this one develops.

Book jacket

I made some edits to the SCBWI poster I created (posted earlier) and turned it into a sample book jacket cover instead of a poster. I am working on pieces for my portfolio and hope to create a site where those pieces will live and continue to grow. I am going to get started, now :D

Bye and peace to all.

Eggplant and mushroom

In keeping with the food theme, here is another piece I did in my class last fall. I really like painting food and want to experiment more. I especially like the way the shadows came out in this one, though the purple tones in the eggplant could be darker and the mushroom could use darker shading. I have others in this series that I'll post another time.

Sweet pears

It's a beautiful day and I am thinking about summer and sweet, juicy fruit! Here are some watercolors I did of pears from my watercolor and mixed media class last fall. I am taking a pure watercolor class this summer and am really looking forward to exploring and learning all I can about this delicate and amazing medium.