Paintings of the boys

I dragged out my oil paints recently and painted a picture of my nephew and my son. They are mostly from photographs since there is no way the babies would sit still for more than a second. I painted them with the exact same color palette and on similar pieces of wood. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, and thought it was interesting how different they look.

Comics

My kids are so absurd sometimes. I have been wanting a project to get me to draw more, so I thought recording what they do in comic form might be fun - hence the recent picture of my daughter with her cat toy. I was trying to come up with some new ideas when my mom sent me the link to the Far Side's website (love it btw!). It made me realize I don't have to be quite so literal and tied to what actually or could actually happen. I came up with some ideas and now I am hooked. The little drawings make me chuckle and because I have tons of other ideas, I don't spend too much time on the drawing, which has always been hard for me not to do. A few of the comics are here, and the rest can be found at sleeplessmommy.net.

Playing with proportions

My MIL gave me "Walking your Octopus" by Brian Kesinger. I love the illustrations. It made me wonder why I don't exaggerate proportions more. I really like the look of it, so I gave it a shot with the drawing from my last post. I'm much happier with how it looks now.

Remembering Kira as a toddler

First illustration for Fluffle and Flame

My husband, daughter and I are writing a children's book about a cat and a dragon - "Fluffle and Flame". I had plans for a sort of squirrel-like short-haired cat, but then I saw a photo of my friend's long-haired Siberian cat, and fell in love with it for our "Fluffle". This cat seems like I imagine Fluffle - rather unimpressed with those around her, but fond of luxury and affection.

A book about tongues

My sister wrote a really cute poem about tongues so I've been trying to do the illustrations this summer. It is really hard to stay motivated for the number of illustrations you'd need for a children's book! I ended up making a little booklet for her to send as an option for publishers. They discourage sending art in any case. Here is the cover and a few illustrations I made for the booklet.

Portrait of my Grandma

My grandparents lived in Kenya in the 50's and took a lot of amazing photos. I was excited to practice the techniques I learned in Dominique's class, but didn't have a chance to go to an open studio. So I decided to make a painting of my grandma as a young woman. The photo I chose doesn't show the interesting African scenery they usually show, but that is in the back of my mind as an interesting project. I wanted to see if I could paint my grandma and add some of the missing color information the old photographs lack. I think with time and practice I'll get better at it.

Dominique Medici Workshop

I just took a weekend workshop with Dominique Medici. It was wonderful and I learned so much. She very methodically split up the process. Here is one of the paintings I worked on during the class. I didn't have enough time to finish, but - sans the black background - I was happy with the direction it was going in.