Mondaily early edition with artwork

[ellenmillion]

It was a lovely weekend. We got the fan ripped out of the bathroom, though we didn't get as far as getting the new one installed; we ran out of materials to mount the new one. Apparently, we've moved on from the stage of housebuilding where we had extra 2x4s lying around everywhere. I also got good art time at gaming (in addition to being able to smash a bunch of nasty little gnomes with high-end office chairs). I did a new portrait from scratch (in the queue), refined my 78Tarot sketch, and did a fairly finished sketch of a gift drawing that I've had in mind for a while.

And of course, there were lots of trips out into the cold to look for the moon. (The moon is up right now, but the Guppy is not.)

It's looking likely that we'll finish one of our woodpiles today, which is rather randomly exciting. It's an older pile of birch, and grew some interesting mushrooms over our very, very wet summer (despite being covered). I'm suspicious that these mushrooms have been the cause of some of my sneezing fits, so I'm curious to see if that stops once we've moved to the next pallet of wood.

It's 35 below in town this morning, but must be warmer than 20 below up here, because our outdoor LED lights are no longer in strobe mode. (Thank GOODNESS.)

My inbox is at 34, but nearly all of them are NEW emails; I did well on last week's goal to weed out the inbox a bit.

I have new work up at Portrait Adoption! Okay, technically, it's not NEW. One is several years old but I've held onto it to release during the site upgrades:




The original is available through PA: http://portraitadoption.com/portrait.php?id=2576

The other is a piece I've just added color to:



I have two (totally new) portraits in the queue to be released this week, but I'm hoping other artists will submit some work so it's not just a flood of my own work. HINT HINT HINT.

I'm off to do more color work while I can. And also, get some breakfast. And some phonecalls to find out if anyone in town has prescription cat food, because I was not thinking far enough ahead.

Comments

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I'd have to actually do some art. Which I haven't. Since Sketchfest.

Hm. Perhaps a few furry portraits. I haven't done any furry-ish art for a while, and I'm kind of in the mood for it.

Edited to add: apparently all I felt like drawing was more goddamn elves with compositions more complex than my coloring skills allow for.

Sigh.

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

I was poking through my sketchbook the other night looking for stuff I could finish quickly....maybe tonight, get my butt out of the computer chair...
I like the one you just posted, really nice work on the grey paper. :)

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Getting rid of a possible source of allergens is a good reason to get excited.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I absolutely love that top one! The detailed, comparatively vivid coloring on the foreground contrasts beautifully with the softer, more impressionistic style of the background. Very pretty!

[pixiewildflower.livejournal.com]

Lovely!

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

This is probably a dumb question, but what happens to the mushrooms? Do they dry up or do they burn in the fireplace?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

They burn up in the woodstove! I fear that they think it's spring when I bring them into the warm house in the morning and thaw out and go to spore before I stuff them in the stove. My sneezing has lessened greatly since I got through the old woodpile.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

It seems to have worked, too!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

That sounds familiar! I'm constantly sketching things I would NEVER be able to finish with my current skillset and time. They may be good ideas to come back to later, though, so I never consider them a waste. :)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I love that toned paper.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I really like this art technique - the toned paper makes a nice middle-ground to start from, and printing a sketch directly onto it simplifies the coloring process incredibly. It doesn't smear like working color over an original sketch would.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I got most of the way through inking it before realizing that I wasn't going to be able to finish it in a way that was satisfying, and then stared at it for a while before deciding that the line art on its own isn't sufficient for a PA piece, which sort of adds a little extra annoyance on top.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense. Glad your sneezing is slowing, too!!!

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

You know, I've been thinking about trying that kind of thing -- painting/coloring on top of a printout -- especially for doing watercolors on top of inks. Do you just use a regular laser printer for it? And do you need special paper, or can you use regular kinds of art paper?