This painting is a bear in more ways than one.

Yay! All done! These three are destined to go to a auction for Art for Animals, a charity for spay and neuter programs in Nashville. I'll post event information again when it gets closer. The auction is in November.

Remember those paintings I did for charity last year? Well, I'm doing the auction again this year! So I'm taking a short break from the big helmet painting and working on these. They are due for submission by Oct 9, so this shouldn't be much of a delay.

Argh. Rough start to this big boy. Maneuvering my easel with this guy on it has been making me seriously consider an easel upgrade. Something like this maybe:

Fussing with composition and setting stuff on fire in the garage for this one. It's a different sensation, really, setting stuff on fire as an adult and actually worrying about property damage.

Finished! This turned out rather well. Things were getting a little dicey with the grass, but in the end the effect is what I wanted. I wrapped this up just in time for my trip to Seattle.... yes!

Almost done with this one.

My new painting schedule has been working: paint every day from 8pm to 10pm. Tuesdays off.

I've been feeling good about it, and the small chunks makes it feel more manageable, so that mental block of "I don't have a big enough chunk of time today to paint!" disappears. I even stop myself early once time is up, which is an interesting sensation. Being able to juggle work, husband, cello, garden, chores, play and painting has got me feeling very balanced, if not a little regimented.

Got some feedback from the sis. She was concerned about too many elements rounding the shoulders, I think. So, with the magic of shooping, I've tweaked some proportions and shifted things around a bit. She's mentioned she'd like to go full color since the existing tattoo has some, so I've got the go ahead on that.

Hopefully this will look a little better to her. If I get an OK, I guess I'll move this over to paper at 100%. Making this on the premise that I'll be handing it over to someone else is a challenge.

So here's a sketch of what I have in mind. When I eventually work it at full size, I envision a few more subtle details in the backgrounds (clouds behind the branches, texture in the water). I'm leaving it up to my sister if she wants me to flesh this out in full color, or in black and white. Either way, I think I can design it to work.

I hope she likes the direction.

Working on a tattoo makes me think about getting one for myself. Maybe I'll make the one I painted a reality.

My sister K asked me, oh, a year ago now (?!) if I could design a tattoo that expanded on an existing one she's got on her shoulder. Now that I'm between paintings, I thought I'd finally take a stab at it.

The full idea I've got involves a lot of elements, and I envision it being very large, covering most of her back, with a lot of tone and color. However, the existing tattoo she's got (a stylized sun on the back of her right shoulder) is not my style at all. Since I'm planning on incorporating the sun into my bigger design, I thought I would tackle it first.

Keep in mind I haven't touched pen and ink in a REALLY long time so I'm still getting my inking legs back.



I'm going to email it to her tonight and then send her some bigger design sketches tomorrow. I hope she likes it!

( Existing tattoo photo under the cut. )

Finished this last night, I think. Looking at it today, I'm feeling pretty good about it, so I'm calling it finished. For now anyway.

Unsure about this right now, but I'm extremely pleased about having a regular studio practice now.

The first is a revision of the earlier composition. I like this one a lot better. There's a third in the series that I keep seeing very big and complicated. We've got a canvas lying around that's about 5' x 4' or so that will work nicely.

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts here in Nashville has a Medieval art exhibit up. We spent Saturday over there. There weren't as many nice paintings as I would have liked, but there were some famous ones (Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano). There was a gorgeous Book of Hours there by an artist from Ghent. It was absolutely stunning. The illuminated manuscripts and books of hours were the highlights of the show.

For some reason, I was quite taken with some of the sculpture and ornaments. Here are some drawings from that day.



(I broke my black brushpen, so here's blue!)

Dunno how I feel about this.

But I do know I want to learn to play the pipa.

I think I broke this brush pen too. Need to get another.