I’m not really taking on portrait commissions right now because I have so much other work going on while keeping my galleries supplied with new art, but I made an exception for this one because it’s for my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law, who are giving this painting as a gift to their mom.  (My husband’s grandma.)

Now, while I believe all animals are beautiful, and radiate an innocence and unselfconscious simplicity of being (of which most humans are incapable,) some animals have facial markings that are more of an aesthetic challenge from a painter’s point of view.  Sassy is one such animal.

But once I got some momentum in the painting process, it went fairly smoothly, and I’m satisfied with the result.

Here’s the painting:

Sassy, 16″ x 12″, Acrylic on Canvas

Now, I’m off to FedEx to get Sassy on her way, then I’ll jump into the next painting challenge on my list.

To get a sense of scale, each person’s head in this photo is about 20 x 40 pixels.  In a high-res photo of a person’s face, one eye would be at least this size.  Here’s one of the faces blown up so you can see what I was working with:

And here’s what one eye looks like in a good reference photo.  Reflections in the eyeball.  Wrinkles and pores and individual hairs.

You can see my dilemma.  Normally I would say “no way” to a project like this, but I really wanted to do this painting.  The people in the photo are the 6 siblings of the Smith family, and their family has been close to my own ever since we all met when I was 14.

I had to do this painting.  So I decided to jump in and do the best I could with that photo.  Here’s the result–it took me many hours.

The Smith Kids

20″ x 20″, Acrylic on Canvas

The painting was commissioned by their father as a gift for the oldest daughter (top left) who is one of my most loyal collectors and already owns several of my paintings.

The oldest son (left) is one of my closest and dearest friends.  We have grown up together and kept in touch sporadically over the years, but we’ve always kept in touch.  In the past year, he is responsible for introducing me to contra dancing!

The second oldest son (bottom left) practically lived with my family for a couple of years when he was in high school.  To this day, he is there at all our important family gatherings.

The younger 3, (bottom right, right, top right) I have not seen in person since they were kids, but I keep up with them online via Facebook and Myspace.

Details of the faces:

I had to set aside my desire to get a perfect likeness of each person.  Instead I worked on getting it close enough so you could tell who’s who, and capturing some essence of each personality.

I’m particularly pleased with the hands:

I’m writing from my parents’ house, surrounded by the raucous laughter of my family, feeling happy.

In this reference photo, it looks like she’s in her Easter clothes, and I see her as an embodiment of the hopefulness of spring–a carefree, sweet, laughing little girl.

So I titled this painting “Springtime Zoie.”

10″ x 8″, Acrylic on Canvas

You might be interested to see how many unexpected colors you can find in a portrait painting when you look closely.  The squares of color below are all samples from the actual painting, pulled from the image with an eyedropper tool.

In the second photo, she looks silly and mischievous but also very self-composed, which gives us a slight glimpse of the woman she’ll someday be.  She wears a sassy little smirk that I can imagine on her grown-up face as she teases her friends at her kitchen table.

So I call this one “Sassy Zoie.”

10″ x 8″, Acrylic on Canvas

This is the same Zoie I painted almost 2 years ago, when she was much littler.  Despite her appearance changing as she grows older, you can see it’s the same little girl in all 3 paintings because they all have the same vivacious, shining eyes.

I’ve found that most people feel they’re not qualified to be art collectors.  There is a common misconception that art is for an elite class of people—that you have to be extraordinarily knowledgeable, cultured and rich to be able to buy original works of art.

There is definitely an established stereotype of what an “art collector” might be like.  You may picture someone who was born into money, and lives in a large house with a butler.  You may imagine this person going to black tie events, sailing on a private yacht, or speaking with great eloquence about fine wines.  This person went to an Ivy League school, is well-read and probably speaks more than one language.  These are all lovely images, and while it’s true that knowledgeable, cultured, and rich people do tend to buy art, the average art collector does not fit that stereotype.

People get this image in their minds because it’s usually the only one they’re familiar with. Everybody hears about the Van Goghs and Picassos selling for millions at auction. Rarely do you hear a news story about a middle-class person buying a piece of art made by a living artist–but it happens every day.

The truth is all kinds of people from all economic classes and professions buy original art. The only thing art collectors all have in common is that they love art enough to buy it. If you would like start an art collection, but you don’t know where to start, click here for a few pieces of general advice.

I’ve launched a new page on my website to honor my collectors and give the rest of you a glimpse of what kind of people own my work.

Click here to see notes and photos from some of my collectors!

I just finished a new pet portrait.  I think this dog is so adorable.

Joey in the Sun

16 x 12″ Acrylic on Canvas

This was commissioned as a companion piece for my earlier painting, Rainy in the Sun.

I’m going to the Big Apple this weekend to visit my brother, and I’ve also got plans to spend Thanksgiving with family.  I hope you are all enjoying the season and staying warm!

But I just wanted to share this new painting with you. I’m really happy with this one.

Benjamin
Acrylic on Canvas 24 x 30″

Detail:

Detail:

This is going to hang in the client’s dining room, which is decorated with a lot of green and gold. With a gold-tone frame, this painting will look fantastic in that room!

I have been really on top of getting magnet shipments out right away, so if you’ve ordered magnets you can expect to get them soon.

Have a beautiful weekend–I’m going to get the most out of mine, as my wisdom tooth extraction is on Tuesday. Wish me luck…

Curious Kitten
Acrylic on Canvas 8 x 10″

Thanks to the excellent photographer JP Dawson for the source image for this painting! This is one of my favorites so far in the cat series–I like how the red background is so vibrant. I can just picture this little guy swatting at a piece of string.

Please take these 2 quick polls. Polls are fun!

I signed with a new gallery this week, the Premiere Fine Arts Gallery in Lambertville, New Jersey, owned and operated by Anthony Mustello.

This means I now have regular representation by 4 galleries. (“Regular representation” just means that they sell my paintings continuously and always have some of my artwork in stock–as opposed to a one-time showing.) So, that’s 4 business relationships I have now–relationships I must value and maintain.

My career is picking up speed as I become more established as a professional in my field. Of course I’m happy about that–I’m thrilled to share my talents with the world and to receive recognition for my work, and I’m so thankful for the income my art brings in. But at the same time, I am feeling the pressure to maintain a standard of quality in my work, and to spend enough hours on my artwork so that I am constantly creating something new and exciting.

I think I’m at a time in my life where I’m in the thick of it, so I can’t step back and see how well I’m doing (or not.) It just feels hard–and like I’m always falling behind and never up to my own standards.

However, that’s how I felt during my entire senior year of college too, and I came out of that with lots of experience, lots of friends, and a 4.0 GPA, achieving honors in my major. So, I’m going to just nurture my faith in myself and my work, and try to stay focused on my long-term vision without letting it make me too serious. At least, that’s the goal.

Anyway, here are a couple new pieces for you to see:

Mocha the Huntress
Acrylic on Canvas 8″ x 10″

(Reference photo courtesy of Ashley Van Alstyne–thank you Ashley for letting me use your beautiful photo!)

And this next one mimics the basic composition of my painting “Radiant Sky” but is actually quite different from that one.

The word ethereal means: characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; intangible. This painting turned out so airy and sunny. It looks like such a perfect day that it’s only halfway in the real world, and halfway in the realm of imagination.

So it’s titled: Ethereal Day
Acrylic on Canvas 24″ x 20″

I have been told before that I would be good at painting the scenery on theater sets, because my work sometimes has a dramatic, storybook quality. I think this painting definitely has that.

This past week I’ve done extensive modifications to one of my existing paintings, Upward Momentum. The collectors who are buying the painting were torn between this one and another one, but this one is bigger and they wanted the bigger size because they’re moving into a new home with lots of blank walls. So I made some changes to the painting to make it more like the other one they liked (Towering Trunk.)

Here’s the old version of the painting:

And here’s the new version:

As you can see, the composition remained the same, but everything else is now quite different. I like the new version a lot better–my favorite part is the beautiful highlights on the trunk of the biggest tree.

In other news, I’ve started germinating some of the seeds for my garden. Perhaps only fellow gardeners will appreciate the level of sheer giddy excitement I feel when I look on my windowsill and see this:

Lucky
Acrylic on Canvas, 8 x 10″
Reference photo courtesy of Marc Pitman (Thanks Marc!)
…I love his clear sea-green eyes!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous today–I’m painting outside today, just because I can. The air is soft and the sun is shining. Aaahhh–my spirits are lifted.

Ada Monroe
8″ x 10″ Acrylic on Canvas
(Source photo courtesy of Kenna Hinkle–thank you for giving me a beautiful image to paint!)

In other news…

(Warning: Stop reading now if gardening-related rambling does not interest you!)

Yesterday I was thinking about the spring, and I started looking through seed catalogs, and I got really excited about my garden. So, of course, I placed an order for more seeds than I could possibly grow in the space that I have. I’ll have to be content with growing a few of each plant instead of using up every single seed packet like I want to.

Here’s what I got:

romaine lettuce (cosmo-savoy and jericho)
fire red leaf lettuce
dinosaur kale
spinach (viroflay and bloomsdale)
bush champion cucumbers
broccoli
tendergreen bush beans
imperial star artichokes
valencia onions
leeks
cantaloupes
orange bell peppers
green tomatillos
tomatoes (arkansas traveler, cherokee purple, and burbank)
basil
licorice mint
nicotiana jasmine-scented flowers
evening sun sunflowers
tiger’s eye sunflower assortment
multi-colored zinnias
2 pounds of german butterball potatoes

And I saved some seeds from the best plants in my garden from last year:

red bell peppers
green bell peppers
red hot chili peppers
jalapeños
watermelons
pumpkins
and butternut squash

…and I also got the “Garden Ecology Collection,” which is “eight varieties selected to provide habitat for pollinators, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other beneficials, while confusing garden pests.” Includes borage, butterfly weed, miyashige daikon, foxtail white wonder millet, tall fernleaf fiddleneck, bouquet dill, purple-throated mullein, and texas hummingbird sage.

I’m going to buy zucchini starts later on because really I just want one or two strong ones–zucchini takes up a lot of space. I always get my marigolds as starts because I know a good farmers market that always has them for a good price. And in the few areas of my yard not taken up by grass or a jungle of vegetables, I’m going to sprinkle wheat berries all around so my dog and cat will have wheat grass to munch on.

I can’t wait till the weather is warm and I can put on boots and work gloves and get a pitchfork and dig in my compost heap.

Eeeek! OMG OMG OMG! Clearly, I can’t contain my excitement.

In anticipation of springtime, I used creative license when making this painting–I used one of my photos as a reference but then embellished the image, adding a spattering of pink buds and blossoms. Cherry blossom season is so fleeting–if I get a little too busy, it’s easy to nearly miss the magical transformation of my tree every spring. I wish it could last longer. I’m going to make sure to spend enough time in my backyard this year.

April Cherry Blossoms
Acrylic on Canvas 30 x 24″

April Cherry Blossoms in a room:

And here is my first portrait of my cat, Quani. (I’ll probably do more of her.) As you can see, she has a very intense look about her.

Quani
Acrylic on Canvas 8 x 10″

Tomorrow we’re hosting a potluck dinner/movie nite. I’m going to make California rolls. I’m so looking forward to hanging out with my friends.