A special custom piece - Birth Mother

This painting was a special assignment: a Momma asked me if I would be able to paint an illustration of her son's birth mother, going off of her description of the woman and a photo of her son.

I think it is so wonderful that a Momma would choose to honor her child's birth mother in this way!

Friday Artist Feature on Harmony's blog!

Harmony Pyper (a fellow artist, Etsian, and adoptive Momma) featured me and my art on her blog today.  Feel free to swing by there - you will find out a little more about my life, my background, my motivation and inspiration for painting, and you will even get to see my messy messy art corner.

Follow the link to Harmony's blog HERE.

Work in Progress - Kirsten

It has been a few days since I last posted. Right now I am working on a 12x16 painting of my youngest sister, Kirsten, playing the Cello. 

I still need to add in the dark shades and shadows, but I think this painting is coming along nicely.

Here's a detail-view of her face. 

Work in progress - Little Nursling

Look what I did yesterday evening. I haven't decided yet if I even like this painting... I may keep working on it, or I may abandon it and work on something else. I don't like the yellow highlights on the baby's face because they make him look jaundiced, but the pigment in the yellow paint is a dyeing pigment, so I can't lift it back off...

Little Nursling - 8.5"x8.5"

Work in progress - Makeda - DONE! (I think)

I think I am finally finished with this painting. 

I have added some highlights to her lips and nose, and have blended the shadows on the left side of her face a little more.

Here is a detail view of Makeda's face. I love how expressive her eyes and mouth have turned out. 

Ps: I worked on Makeda's eyes a little more, and am much happier with how they look now (Feb 19). NOW she really is done. 

"Miheret" - 8x8 watercolor illustration

‎"Miheret" - 8x8 watercolor - thank you to Cindy Burt for letting me use her fantastic photograph of her beautiful daughter dancing in the evening sunlight.

This painting was HARD to do, with all the transparent whites that in reality aren't white, but many colors... I'm pleased with the end result though, especially the sun glow. 

Sorry folks, no prints will be sold of this painting, by request of Miheret's mother.

For-fun ACEO paintings

I'm really enjoying the freedom of being able to paint whenever I feel like it (rather than having the pressure of painting at least one complete painting every day - even if it was self-imposed). I've started several pieces, soon to be finished. Because I hate to waste good paper, I filled the "gaps" with some ACEO paintings.

Hamari woman from Ethiopia - they coat strands of their hair in red clay mixed with oil, and coat their foreheads in the same mixture. 

Young woman wearing a tie-died dress. You may notice that I only initialed these paintings, rather than signing and dating them. I'll sign and date them on the back.

I started these two little paintings in my watercolor class last week. Seeing my very exact method of previous paintings the instructor challenged me to let the colors mix on the wet paper instead of pre-mixing them on the pallet. It was a little scary to be painting pure Venetian red and pure magenta and pure indigo paint into the faces of these women, and letting them mix into shades of brown there. Overall I am very pleased with the effect though! The instructor also challenged me to make the background more interesting by adding some of the colors from the foreground. I may have overdone it a little in the painting of the Hamari woman - but with practice it will get better.

Keep in mind that these paintings are only 2.5"x3.5"... 

Illustrations for a friend

My friend asked me to draw her a few little illustrations for a story she  wrote. These are fairly small, and just drawn with graphite and a black fine-liner, but I thought you might still enjoy seeing them.

It has been a long time since I've drawn anything just with pencils and graphite. I forgot how fun it is... but I also miss the color and depth I can give a picture by adding watercolor! We will see what comes of this little project... 

Best of 2011 paintings

It is fun for me to go through my now fat folder of ACEO paintings to see which ones I am happiest with. While there are others (such as some of the flower paintings, the chameleons, and the paintings of my boys) that I love very much, the paintings that have sold the most prints on Etsy are the following: 

Thank you all for a great year of supporting my art. I hope you keep on checking back here, as well as in my Etsy shop (see link on the right of my page) and my facebook page to see what new originals and prints I am creating and selling. 

Oh, and did you know that I will soon start selling some of the originals from my Everyday Art project?! If you have a favorite that you are interested in purchasing, please eMail me to see if it's available...

Abstract Acrylic Trio

Over a year ago I started and the abandoned a set of three 8x10 canvas paintings. I came across them while cleaning up my art corner, and decided to paint a new painting over the old one.

 The reds and greens and yellows are parts of the old painting shining through. I had fun with this project. I have a few other old abandoned paintings that I may work over in similar fashion...