Life Imitates Art
While the mother character in the book is modeled after my own mom, these illustrations are actually based on my sister, who had her baby last year and took some pictures of herself doing household chores to help me out. Before my own pregnancy, it was hard for me to visualize how a pregnant lady would carry a box or a bucket. I have a better idea now.
Needless to say, things have been busy around here, and I haven't made any new posts or videos recently. However, I've got several paintings in the works right now, and I hope to show them off soon.
Kitchen Scene in Progress
I mapped out the kitchen (above) using sketches and images pulled into a Photoshop composite. I like using Photoshop to experiment with my compositions because I can move, rotate and scale the elements easily without having to redraw them. I transferred my composite sketch to the canvas and began painting in the hardwood floor. To give the floor a smooth appearance, I needed to make long brush strokes without awkwardly painting around the many things on the floor.
I marked the edges of the cabinets with masking tape. I painted masking medium over top of the sketches of the girls, boxes and ferret, then painted in the hardwood floor. After everything dried, I peeled away the masking tape and masking medium and worked on other sections of the kitchen:
Here's the illustration so far:
The scene needs to look very busy so I plan to add more clutter and detail.
Drawings for the book
The two little girls in the story help their pregnant mom with the animal care. Here are a few drawings I'm working on, one of the sisters bottle feeding an otter, and both girls helping their mom feed the birds:
I'm working on developing a family likeness between the two girls and their mother. It's been difficult getting good pictures of the sketches, since my lighting setup is optimized for paintings, and the sketches are much more sensitive to uneven light because of the white background. However, I just got a scanner for the drawings and I'm in the process of setting it up.
Photoshop Sketch Composites
In this scene, the girls in the story are preparing to go outside to play in the yard. Their pregnant mom is cleaning the house and packing for a move. Queen Ferret, the central narrator and comic relief figure, is doing her best to cause trouble.
I started with these sketches (click on images to see larger versions):
I wanted the scene to be in a kitchen or hallway of a house, but I experimented with several backdrops before deciding on which to use.
To start, I found a photo of a kitchen that I liked, and an image of of a stack of moving boxes. I modified my sketch of the ferret pulling a sock out of a drawer into a drawing of her stealing something from an open box.
It was tricky finding a kitchen with the right perspective (from just under counter height, since the girls are sitting on the floor) but I eventually found one I liked and converted it into a grayscale sketch-type image using the Desaturate and Filter Gallery (Poster Edges) commands. I did the same thing to the stack of boxes and window image.
Next is the part I wish I had known when I did the glider painting, since perspective drawing has never been my strong suit. I took each of my sketches and cut out the backgrounds using the Magic Wand Tool, selecting the background and then inverting the selection to select the object only. I copied and pasted the images onto my kitchen image. Each pasted image went into a new layer. Next, I used the Free Transform command to scale, flip and rotate the pasted images into a composition that I liked. When I started, I wasn't sure if I would prefer to have the girls in the background or foreground, where to put the ferret, or how big each character should be in relation to the other. I shuffled the layers around to overlap the characters. Here's what I came up with as my painting mockup:
I extended the right edge and ceiling of the kitchen using the Clone Stamp tool on the background, and added a window showing the girls' backyard. I want to put a small detail into the backyard to tie into the story, but I haven't decided on one yet.
I think I liked this composition best because of the triangular layout that ties the characters together. The hillside in the window points down at the mother's face, her mop points towards the ferret, and the ferret faces the girls. The older sister's body angles back up at the mother.
As you can see, the goal is not to create an attractive drawing, but to experiment with composition in a quick and easy way prior to investing a lot if time. Had I been doing the composite sketch on paper, I would have had to erase and redraw each character every time I changed my mind. Now that I have my composite, I will transfer the basic lines to my canvas and paint it as a large full-color painting.
Tying Shoes
The young girls in the story are learning to tie shoes, so I needed several illustrations of shoe tying. I have a very difficult time with both hands and shoes in general, so this was doubly hard. However, I have two that I'm happy with :
Here's Queen Ferret overseeing the shoe tying. This sketch has less detail because I am thinking of using it to make a painting for the cover.
Evening Tide
Below is a detail shot where you can see a bit of the canvas texture. I made the area around the boys' heads a bit brighter to indicate dusk and draw focus to them.
Prints of this painting are available in my Print Gallery.
New Book Drawings
I'm illustrating a children's book written by my father-in-law. The story has a ferret narrator (here and here) and features a family preparing for a new baby in the midst of a move. My sister Gillian modeled as the pregnant mom in the story, a week before her own daughter was born.
Here's another drawing of Gillian as the mother in the story:
Here's the ferret narrator, dreaming up mischief while she rifles through the laundry basket:
Here's the younger daughter holding the ferret:
Sketches of my sister
My beautiful sister Gillian helped me out by posing for the drawings of the pregnant mom in the story. Her own baby girl was born a week later. In the book, the mother of the family runs an animal shelter in the country. She's about to give birth to her third child.
The ferret narrator (and comic relief figure) is shown here watching her clean:
A Girl and her Beagle, Finished
I've finished my portrait of the cute little girl and her beagle. I decided on a dark blue shaded background to contrast with the pink of her dress. Here's the finished portrait:
A Girl and Her Beagle, In Progress
I've been working on my portrait of the little girl and her Beagle. I started with the Beagle's face. I've taped the original photo composite to a blank spot on the canvas for reference. Here's the underpainting:
I used blending medium to keep the underpainting from drying, and began mixing in the main colors.
I added the eyes and nose and put in more detail on the fur.
When I had the dog at an intermediate point, I began work on the girl by laying in the pinks in her skin.
I then covered the pink underpainting with a mixture of Titan Buff and some pinks and browns.
I added the colors around her eyes and mouth before painting them in:
Once I added the eyes, the portrait began to look more lifelike.
I then added her dress and hair, using pink hues throughout to tie it together:
Here's a closeup of their faces:
Next, I'm going to work on adding the rest of their bodies and the background.
Read the rest of this post...Ralphie's Finished Portrait
Ralphie loved to play in the Christmas wrappings. He looks like a wonderful dog. Read the rest of this post...
A Little Girl and her Beagle
I have been working on this portrait of a very cute little girl and her beagle. I started with this original photograph:
I made this rough sketch to map out the pose:
However, this pose didn't show the dog's face very well, so I used this additional photo of the dog to make a variation on my original sketch:
My Royal Portrait
I've been practicing my people portrait painting this last week. I usually paint portraits of dogs, and occasionally other animals, but I would like to paint more people.
Painting my own species is difficult but I'm practicing by painting a very recognizable face: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She has been photographed throughout her entire life, and has posed for dozens of royal portraits. I like this portrait by Christian Furr at Buckingham Palace. The Queen chose Christian herself to paint this portrait when he was only 28.
I don't have the opportunity to paint her in person but I have been experimenting with painting Queen Elizabeth using old photos.
Here's the start of my small practice painting from a younger photo of the Queen:
I haven't decided whether to add her crown and jewelry. It would make the portrait more recognizable but the plainer, candid feeling is interesting too. I'll think about this as I work on improving the likeness and adding more of the background. It's fun being able to choose the color of her dress and chair.
Painting of a Girl, In Progress
I took detailed photos of the little girl's painting progress in the people portrait from yesterday's post.
Children and a Lab, Finished
It's been a long time since I last posted but I'm proud to show my new people portrait:
I used this original photo, and added the family dog using supplementary photos:
Read the rest of this post...Jim's Glider, a Story in a Painting
This is a painting I painted earlier this summer using a story as a reference. I usually work from photographs, so it was a bit of a challenge to put all the details together properly, but I like the way it turned out.
It is August 1929, on the North Shore of Vancouver, Canada, my favourite city. My husband's grandfather Jim is taking off in a glider, while his friend tows the glider in the car. Their wives, my husband's grandmother and her best friend, are looking on and waving at Jim in the plane.
Portrait of an Artist, Part 2
Today I worked on my portrait of Genie, working in her art studio. As an animal artist, I'm quite new to people portraits so I was a bit nervous about how I would paint skin, especially since I was using a black and white photo to paint a color portrait. Here's my progress so far:
I took lots of photos of the progress up to this point, have a look:
Portrait of an Artist, Part 1
And now for something completely different...
I'm starting on human portraits. I'll be painting a portrait of Genie, in her art studio, surrounded by some of her own paintings. One of the things I love about this photo is that although it was taken almost half a century ago, the woman in the photograph is using almost exactly the same model of easel that I'll be using to paint her portrait. It looks like she might be painting left-handed like I do as well.
This portrait will be particularly challenging for several reasons; it's a very large portrait (24"x36"), it's a subject I'm not familiar with, and finally, I'll be converting it from black and white to color, based on a description. Here's my initial line drawing, not including the paintings:
I'll be going through a lot of masking tape to make all those straight lines. Wish me luck!
Portrait of Dad, Age 8
Dad was a good sport for letting me put this picture of him on the internet. This is a pencil crayon portrait I drew of my father when I was about 8 years old. I've been reading up on human portrait techniques now that I am painting one, and I thought this picture would be useful to illustrate a common mistake when drawing faces.
