Stuff

After a several month dry spell with virtually no inquiries, orders or sales of prints/cards, etc, I've had a pretty busy week. I've had two requests to donate items for silent auctions. One of the auctions is in Maryland, US for a Lab Rescue group and I donated a set of greeting cards and a print of my Chocolate Lab drawing, Ghira.

In addition to the prints and cards, I donated a $100 gift certificate to be used towards a custom pet portrait. The second auction will be held here in Fredericton for a group who is raising money to help a friend in need. I gave them a $100 gift certificate as well for their auction. So hopefully this will drum up some business for me and at the same time, help raise money for some great causes!

And while I was busy getting things ready to be sent out for these auctions, I received a large order request from the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of Queensland, Australia. They are having a show in Dec. and placed an order for 25 prints and a few notecard sets of my Staffie drawing, George, to be used as prizes. So I'm in the process of getting that ready to be sent out this week. Quite exciting!

So things seem to be picking up a bit and hopefully will continue. It's gotten me motivated to get back into drawing again, now that my studio is set up in the new house. I've also been thinking about what theme I should choose for my drawings, that would be popular for prints and cards. At the moment, I'm just trying a bunch of different things, but perhaps I should be more focused. I'm toying with the idea of doing a series of dog breeds, because these are the ones that seem to sell the best from my collection. Or maybe I should do horses...or puppies and kittens...I can't decide! I would be interested to hear what my readers have to say, so I am open to comments. And for the artists, in your experience, what subjects are most popular?

Nov 7, 2009

All Moved In

It's been almost 3 weeks since we've been in our new house and we absolutely LOVE it!! It's exceeded our expectations and we're so happy here! Most of the place is set up and organized except for the exercise room, the garage and the studio so I haven't done any artwork yet. I thought I would post some pictures so you can see why I love it so much! The following is our house and property.

 

 

Oct 31, 2009

Rocks

I decided to try something different this time, which means I may have to change the title of my website yet again!! "Pet Portrait and Animal artist" doesn't cover rocks! And since I'm really enjoying drawing something other than fur, I may just do more of this type of drawing.

I still feel like I'm trying to find my niche in terms of my artwork. My forte is definitely pencil, but I still enjoy trying other materials and subjects. But for now I'm enjoying experimenting! For quite a while I've been wanting to draw a pile of something like rocks, pencils, marbles, whatever...! Monotony works for me when it comes to my artwork (to an extent)!

I often feel inspired by the work of other artists, and lately I've really been admiring the work of April Jarocka, who's blog I follow. She does amazing paintings of beach rocks (among other things)...check out her blog! After watching many of her paintings unfold, I decided that I wanted to try my own rock drawing. I love all the colours that are found in beach rocks and I wanted to capture that in my own drawing.

So here is stage one of my drawing that I'm calling "Cape Cod Rocks" for now. I took the reference photo myself on a beach in Menauhant, Cape Cod this summer, while staying at a friend's cottage.

``Cape Cod Rocks``

8x10

Coloured Pencil

Work in Progress

On another note, I'm probably going to be away from my drawing desk for the next little while. We're in the process of moving to a house in Mactaquac, NB, which is on a beautiful piece of waterfront property. We've been waiting to move for over a month now but as of last week, we officially sold our current house and officially bought our new one! We move on October 13th and we're so excited!! It's a little further outside of Fredericton than we are now so it will take me 30 min to get to work (I know, that's nothing for you big city folk!). I don't have any good pictures of the new house yet, but here are a couple from our new front yard, taken from the deck.

And one last piece of news...I will be having back surgery sometime during the winter. If you've read some of my past posts, I mentioned that I've been having back problems due to a herniated disc. After meeting with my surgeon, we decided that surgery is the way to go so I can get my life back to normal. I don't know the date yet, but I'm hoping I'll be able to stay home during the really bad weather this year! I'll probably be off work for almost 2 months. So during that time, once I'm feeling better, I hope I'll be able to spend some time on my artwork. But I guess I'll have to see how I feel then.

I know moving won't be great for my back, but we've hired movers to lug all the boxes, I'll just have to help pack. Normal, day to day stuff isn't really that bad on my back. It's when I have to bend and move around a lot that I start to get sore. I'm trying hard to use my legs a lot instead of bending, but I know I'm still going to get sore while we move. I'll just have to be really careful!

Well I guess that's my news for now. I'll try and post something again soon, but I can't guarantee it!!

Sep 27, 2009

Wow, 2 posts in one weekend!

Amazingly I'm back again with another piece of artwork...my second one I finished this weekend! I've never used scratchboard before so I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I'm sure I could do better with practice but it was a good learning experience. This one didn't take me that long to complete - probably only a couple of hours. It's quite fun to work with so I'll be trying it again sometime.

"In the Shadows"
7.5 x 9
Scratchboard

*Available for sale*

Photo credit - Wetcanvas photo reference library
(user: annj)

Aug 30, 2009

Tully - Head Study

After another long wait, I have something else to show you. This is a quick-ish drawing I did of one of my cats. I actually started it over a year ago (maybe more), and just came across it again yesterday so I thought I would finish it.

I am open to critiques and alternate titles!

"Tully - Head Study"
6x7
Coloured Pencil

Aug 29, 2009

I am a pet portrait artist again!

Well after a bit of a break, I decided to start taking commissions for pet portraits again! I originally took a break because I felt swamped with commissions and wasn't enjoying the process anymore. I had hoped that once I stopped taking on new commissions I would have lots of time to work on my own artwork, but that never really seemed to happen! Without the pressure of commission work, it seems that I don't really have the motivation to create. I have done a little bit myself, but not as much as I expected.

So after much thought, I decided to jump back into the world of pet portraits. My prices have changed a bit in order to keep my waiting list at a minimum. So hopefully sometime soon, I'll have some WIP's to show you!

Aug 5, 2009

Checking in

Hi all,
Sorry I've been missing in action lately. I guess I needed a longer break from being an artist than I thought! I'm starting to get the urge again, so hopefully sometime soon I'll have something to show you! Plus, I've got a lot more free time to work with lately...

Part of the reason I've been missing for so long is the fact that I've been working on getting myself into better shape. That unfortunately takes up an aweful lot of time. Working a full-time job, then coming home and exercising for 1.5 hrs usually, then showering, then supper takes up most of my night, leaving me only about an hour to relax and watch TV. And since summer has started, so has my soccer season, with games usually 2-3 times a week. Phew!

And now for the reason I've got some more time on my hands....
I've always had back problems, but last summer I hurt my back pretty bad during a soccer game. Ever since then, my back has been giving me an aweful lot of grief. My most recent problem is low back and sciatic nerve pain, that makes me limp most of the time, and has been going on for about 2 months. I've been popping ibuprofen like candy (I know it's terrible on the stomach), and I've been seeing a chiropractor and physiotherapist.

Because of this, and on the advice of these practitioners, I've decided to completely stop exercising for 2 weeks and see how things go. I have a feeling that I may need to take a longer break and perhaps even miss the whole soccer season. It's killing me that I have to stop exercising because I was 2 weeks away from being done my P90X training program (which is a feat in itself), and I love soccer! And I was finally in really good shape and losing weight.

Anyway, that's what's been going on in this artist's world. I hope to get back into drawing again soon and I'll try not to take such a long break in the future.

Jul 5, 2009

My recent art project

Well I finally have something artsy that I can show you! I've been painting our exercise room and decided to make it a little fun by adding a design to the walls. Here are some photos.

The first picture is where I got my idea for the whole thing - a t-shirt I got from Old Navy several years ago.

And here is the room:

Now all I need to do is paint the navy blue entertainment centre and shelves. I'll probably paint them either black or chocolate brown? What do you think?

May 18, 2009

Just checking in

Hi everyone. Thanks for following my blog and sorry that it's been pretty dormant lately. Since finishing my last commission and doing a couple of ACEO's, I haven't really done too much of anything when it comes to my artwork! I guess I just needed a bit of a break to do other things.

So what have I been doing? I've been working on getting myself into shape, which unfortunately takes up a fair bit of my time! I painted my exercise room and plan on painting a design on the walls once we get a cloudy/rainy day. So I guess that counts as artwork. I'll take pictures once I'm finished.

So yep, that's about it! Hopefully soon the creative juices will start flowing again and then I'll having something to show. Until then, happy painting/drawing to the rest of you!

May 15, 2009

Friesian ACEO

Don't miss out! Only 1 1/2 days left to bid on my drawing. Click here to bid.

Apr 22, 2009