"Bobby"

I got a little more of Bobby done this weekend. I'm about 7 hours into to it but I anticipate it will go much faster once the mouth is done.

"Let sleeping dogs lie"

Doodle Day!

This is my dog Belle looking out the window. It's water soluble graphite.

"Bobby"

Another in progress drawing. This is a drawing I'm doing for my Sister-in-law. It's a photo of her Uncle that recently past away. She's going to write me a little something up about him to tell everyone of his untimely death at a grain elevator and how we can stop others from needlessly dying.

"Breaking Through 2"

I just realized how putting this in progress painting on my daily blog could have been a bad idea if the painting doesn't turn out. Well we learn by our mistakes and others hopefully. Today I got a little wash done on the body. The shadows on the body I thought turned out nice. I'm using Derwent Graphitint watercolor pencils. The water is "Ocean Blue" and the shadows are "Shadow". How appropriate! The Graphitints don't come in yellows so I used Derwent Signature watercolor pencil in "Diazo (Hue) .

"Breaking Through"

My in progress painting. This is a photo I took for the Henry Doorly Zoo Photo Contest. It was my favorite out of all I took but I put it up to my friends and family to pick the photo to enter and they all liked the Gorilla best. He didn't win but I'm not a photographer either. I would like to do a series of ocean life paintings to show at the Bellevue Little Theatre in March.

"Bootlegger"

"Bootlegger" This is done in Water soluble graphite. This was my first attempt with this medium and I was hooked. It works just like graphite but wetted it acts like watercolor. The pencils come in different hardnesses like other graphite but even the hardest is still quite soft. Have a pencil sharpener handy. This is an old picture of my Great Uncle Alvin. My mother assures me he wasn't a bootlegger. That was a different uncle :) I've always been fascinated with the photo as a child and imagined he was a bootlegger so the name stuck. It won artist of the month in my local Artist Association.

"Mt. Trashmore 2"

This is the complementary picture of the one I did on 19 Aug. It also is graphite with a watercolor wash. It appears my computer distorted the colors a bit. I did the best to correct that here. I found the face in shadows was a lot harder then the one of his sister in full sun. The old wood turned out better than I anticipated . The bits of old white paint popped out once I got the watercolor wash on. I plan on putting one or both of these paintings in the Silver Palette competition in October. Once I find out more guidelines.

"Pall Mall Man"

As I'm finishing my current painting I thought I'd post some old ones. This is a watercolor of my father-in-law called "Pall Mall Man" The wrinkles were done with watercolor pencils. I'm new to watercolor. This was my second serious attempt. I learned a lot and have so much more to learn. It recently won 2nd place in the 2009 Bellevue University Summer Art show!

"Mt. Trashmore"

This is a drawing from a photo of the daughter of a friend of mine. Her and her brother where visiting their grandparents and playing at a park called Mt. Trashmore. It used to be a land fill that was turned into a very nice park. I did a graphite drawing then added a light watercolor wash. I love the old colorized photo effect it gave it. The complementary drawing of her brother is almost done!