the voice in your head doesn't have to breathe

so it can just keep screaming non-stop. Try it. The kid and I agree our internal voices sort of scream inwards when we breathe so it goes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh with each exhale/inhale.

Anyway. Watercolor a day continues.

Monochrome, hand and prayer beads.

My usual supplies.

Quick and intuitive.

I spelled dandelions wrong, first time I tried to do the writing I called it a daffodil, so I just kinda gave up. The skin tone was actually helped by the fact I was using the last of my earl grey tea instead of water to mix/ rinse.

I spend a lot of time hanging out of my balconies right now while I wait for a call. Sometimes I paint or write. Sometimes I try to get the ferret to enjoy the great outdoors with me (he always goes flailing and chirping back into the house)

I also painted this little painting of a border collie in a shower cap. Just to get myself to do something besides wringing my hands together.

And that's my week-ish. That and poems and small batch chocolate chip cookies. 

For Ferret's Sake!

Back in the fall, I wanted a pair of rats. But then I got a few messages from my friend asking if I wanted a ferret. And messages from her girlfriend about what a good ferret parent I would be. And snapchat after snapchat of said ferret. And assurance that the ferret was potty trained and the perfect fit for me as a person and... well, his name is Fenrir and I love him.

Look at that little face! 

So my little project last week was painting a portrait of him in his natural habitat- trouble. 

He inspired it, fittingly, by ripping the packaging open on this canvas while he was hopping around, chirping like a little jerk. 

I covered how I tackle pet portraits last post, so I want to focus on what made this piece especially fun.

The little toe prints that he's "in trouble for" in the painting. 

To get the ferret print effect without the fear of everything going to hell, we took Fen when he was placid (a rare occasion) gently dabbed his front paws on an ink pad and then pressed them against a sheet of paper. I cannot express that the only thing that made me feel more ridiculous than fingerprinting a ferret, was the fact that he went along with it so willingly. We took him to the bathroom to wash his little paws after and he grabbed the washcloth and wiped them off himself. It was criminally cute.

Armed with the prints, I carved little stamps of them. To make the prints on the canvas, I used the stamps and a very rough fan brush to lightly drag the paint like his fur would.

I was beyond happy with the end result. It ended up being the perfect cross between weird creativity that I crave and a flex of my technical skills (I even got to slip one of my hands in there.)

Canvas

When I was a teen and the only things I had to spend money on were comic books and art supplies, I painted on canvas a lot. I went through this ridiculous abstract phase, not that abstract is inherently bad, but boy-howdy mine sure was. Those masterpieces have since been painted over (save for one that had actual effort put in) and besides that, I just don't work on canvas very much. 

But lately I have had this day dream of the perfect commission. There are these GIANT, taller than me, canvas at my local art store. My dream is that some devastatingly good looking person will commission a life-sized black and white nude portrait of themselves that I can do in oil over a gorgeously splattered rainbow on white acrylic background and they'll pay me like 3 grand plus supplies and I'll be able to afford sushi and perhaps a shelf for my art crap. 

This has, of course, gotten me really excited about the idea of working on canvas, so this week I did a bit because I need to list more art in my etsy. Really, I must. This is for my business. 

Playing it safe on canvas board, I did an actually good abstract in the same technique as last week's blog post because I was a bit gutted about cutting it up. 

Procrastinating a commission, I did a similar style, but without really mixed media-ing the tiles. It's just plain acrylic. Also on canvas board. 

On canvas paper, the commission I was supposed to do. I actually had to clean my desk off entirely for it so I could fit both my easel and laptop on it. I work on and off on canvas paper, but I find really most my art I either do in my sketchbook or on bristol/mixed media board to cut into mail art, unless I have a commission, of course. I rarely really do fine art "just because".

I decided that my easel being out was a good enough reason to do a painting on stretched canvas. Which is always a serious delight to me, as is any chance to paint a topless lady. The canvas was an odd size, 12" x 16", so I decided to work in landscape for once. Originally I wanted to try my hand at a palette knife painting, but I settled for just going a bit more impressionist than usual. And I love it so much. I want to paint a thousand more canvas in this style. I am thinking I desperately need to rope some friends into modeling for me because I'm still digging through my old self portraits from when I did photography and needed to iron out lighting issues for inspiration.

So, those are my canvas of the last week. This coming week is the start of InCoWriMo again, so expect something mail related next post...

Gone to the Dogs

I have a hunch that two months ago I wasn't even entirely sure what a dog looked like.

Just a hunch.

But my friend, Elena, who runs a dog emporium  training business had a kind heart and a tight budget for the office space and offered that I could have her giant gorgeous wall to decorate with my art (so long as it was dog or at least pet related) and she'd be happy to offer prints of my work, or the work itself gallery style, in her space. 

This, this gorgeous giant wall.

I had pretty much no idea what I was going to do with this much space. Mostly because I have a tendency to work fairly small and detailed, and when the wall goes up ten million feet, you aren't going to be able to fill it with twinchies. 

I wanted something that would be striking and clean looking for the office space. We're in downtown Portland, after all, they seem to know about dogs and art here. (And beer, on a side note. We went to a nature park when we first got here and there was a flyer advertising what was essentially a get drunk and watch the birds afternoon, all officially organized. This is my kind of city.)

Besides, I wanted the art to be good because my best girl Penny does a lot of work here too and she deserves some good artwork to go with scratches and treats.

I spent a while thinking on this and got a few false starts doing fairly traditional acrylic paintings on canvas. They were alright, but I was worried they were going to look that cozy cobbled together look like the owner's best friend who was a hobbyist painter did her a solid and made art for her empty wall. (wait a second...)

Anyhow, I was sitting in the bottom of the shower thinking on this, probably either a bit sick or hungover or delirious because I stumbled out of the shower and drew the following schematic.

I'm an ARTIST

I tried to send pictures of my blueprints to Elena, and she showed a sort of vague I can't say anything negative or back out because we've been friends since high school enthusiasm. 

I soldiered on and got to cutting stencils.

The first two I did, I will re-do at some point because I hadn't found the right style yet. We'll take a look at the stencil for my personal favorite.

Meet Baxter. He's one of my friend's personal service dogs. Elena provided me with tons of pictures both of her personal dogs and clients of hers to work from. I decided for the office space I really wanted to stick to dogs that were hers because it seemed special and she has enough dogs... 

For the stencils, I worked over the photograph in a sort of daze marking where I wanted black. I really can't describe the process better than this. I don't have any pointers for stencil making besides intuition and again, plastic dividers. I cut out the design painstakingly with an x-acto knife.

Part A. The black details.

Part B. In two variations. You'll see why in a second.

After the stencils are made (and these are clearly used) I sponged on the background first. Doing these in sets of two so that there were white dogs with colorful backgrounds and colorful dogs with white backgrounds. 

Once that is dry, the black details get sponged on so I end up with... 

This. (forgive my poor lighting today, the background is white)

And this. Honestly my favorite of the prints.

I did this process 6 times just for her office art. I talked to her and her girlfriend about what colors they thought they wanted for the space and jokingly threw out rainbow to celebrate their incredible gayness. We decided to give rainbow a go.

They looked so snazzy on my floor we got some dollar store frameless frames and tasked my dear, tall, husband with hanging them in the space.

Voila.

I can now confidently say that I know what dogs look like. Also, I think they look perfect up. I plan to re-do the orange and yellow dogs because I did them first and after the fact they don't look quite right with all the others, but they are fine for now until I get around to it.

It cheers me up every time I go into the office space (which I do now and again to help with some very minor tasks- mostly giving Penny treats.) I have to say it turned out far better than I dreamed.

I've also found, starting to take commissions of peoples' pets even though I was initially reluctant to, it makes me so happy how happy people get at seeing art of their pets. It's just fucking contagious and I can't even begin to complain about people randomly messaging me pet pics inquiring about commissions- even if they don't end up commissioning anything I still get little surprise bursts of cute and joy.

next week- maybe I'll finish my current *not dog* project and post about that? maybe.

Festive Ferrets

I wanted to do something new and actually make my own Christmas cards. I woefully underestimated how many I wanted to send and need to make another batch, but here's my design and process.

I've done a lot of fiddling with stencils lately and feeling ambitious I went for a 5 part stencil. The most I have ever done successfully before is 3.

It started with this sketch of a ferret in a santa hat I just kinda woke up to. I leave myself notes when I am half asleep a lot, usually they are a lot less clear.

Traced the different layers onto bits of plastic divider. No joke, this is my go to for stencils, it is so cheap and holds up so well.

Carefully (ha, not really, more like maniacally) cut out the details for each stencil.

Also spent 75 years cutting down postcard size bits of paper. I was not about to make envelopes and, to be honest, saving a few bucks on postage sounded nice too.

Layer one, dark brown. I brushed the acrylics on going for a more flat look.

Tan.

There was a white layer then a red layer. I missed getting a pic of the white because it really wasn't that exciting.

And finally, layer five, the black details. If I do make another batch, I am definitely doing the first four layers and drawing the black parts on with a sharpie by hand. The details were just a little too fine and the acrylic a little too blobby. But there's a 75% chance anyone I missed the first batch is just getting a store bought card or forgotten because I am pretty much the worst at sending out cards for any occasion and the fact I got 20 out is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

Painting a dog

I had a different post planned for today and was in the process of hunting down the pictures to put with the writing when I stumbled across a series of screenshots of snaps I sent my close friend while painting her dog. They amused me, so as is custom I thought I would share them.

Here is an insight both to how I talk to my friends and also how I go about doing my oil paintings.

I will say, this was my first time painting a dog and I actually had no idea where to start. Generally when doing people faces I start around the nose though because it helps me avoid groucho marx mask syndrome.

I think I did this painting in one sitting. 

Also, I think it took like 8 hours.

Also it was probably the middle of the night.

(this was also somehow my first time painting curtains!)

Ta-daaa. My first dog. Which is great because now I pretty much do 98% fuzzy animals and hands.