Weekly Art Sessions

I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful, cold, snowy winter - I am not! But, it is comforting to know that a good portion of the winter is over, at least the temps are starting to warm up, the days are getting longer, AND, I will be able to go to my cottage in about three months. Since I am not a cold weather person, I have been staying indoors as much as possible and I have managed to get a lot of cleaning and organizing done.

Although my weekly art sessions do not start until April, I do have several pieces from the fall that I can show you.

I absolutely love this one, which was done in coloured pencils by Nancy. The piece is called Vanna in Velvet and was designed by Tina Sue Norris. Nancy did this piece on a suede board, and you can see how soft and fluffy the fur looks when done on suede. She topped the piece off with some very flashy jewellery, and I think it looks wonderful.

This piece is called Kitty and was designed by Renee Mullins. Linda inked the design on a 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" piece of wood, added oil paint, then glued the window pane on top. I love it! Wood is a wonderful surface to use pen & ink on as long as it is prepped properly.

Renee started working with pen & ink last year, and, I believe this is her fourth completed piece. This project was designed by Sandra Malone and is called Snowman. It is done on 11 x 14 canvas. I thought the lime green was a strange colour for the hat, but, when it was completed I thought it looked great.

Jackie is relatively new to pen & ink - she has done a lot of work with other techniques, particularly oil paint, but, I believe, she has only completed a few pen & ink pieces. This piece is called Covered Bridge at Dusk and was designed by Mary Owens. Jackie took the original design and added more deer and trees. I did not measure the canvas but it was VERY long!

This last piece was done by Ginette on wood (approx. 10" high by 8" wide). I don't know who the original artist was. The project was done using pen & ink with oils. She added the 'snow' with Snow Writer (by DecoArt) and then added lots of sparkles (glamour dust). Looks great!

I have a few more projects done by the girls in my art sessions, and I will post them over the next month or two. Our art sessions start again in early April, and, once everyone gets busy, I will have lots of new projects to post in the spring. Personally, I have been working on other projects (paperwork, housework, etc.), but plan very soon to grab my coloured pencils and get busy - I will post my new pieces as they are completed.

Happy painting!

Colored Pencils

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Before Christmas I was very busy working on two projects I was giving as Christmas presents....and I would like to share these pieces with you.

My granddaughter, Jessica, loves everything involving princesses. So, for her Christmas present, I decided to do the Disney Castle. This picture is done on 16x20 mi-teintes paper (orchid colour), and the entire piece is done with coloured pencils. I had a lot of fun experimenting with the pencils to get the right look for the castle, but, I must admit, the bricks at the bottom did get a little tiresome after the first couple of hours working on them! It was a huge undertaking, and I was definitely happy with the results. I was also very happy to finally complete the picture! However, it looks like I have to do another one - my granddaughter, Abigail, now wants a castle for her wall.....

In my collection of pictures I had one of my granddaughter, Abigail, with this wonderful, crazy hat. It was a picture I just loved. So, I decided to try my hand at doing a coloured pencil portrait from the picture. Although, I had done some portrait work using patterns, I had never attempted one from scratch. It was an interesting undertaking. I did the hat first - it was fun, - I had a great time and was very pleased with the way it turned out. Then came the face, the eyes, nose and mouth - it wasn't nearly as much fun as the hat! I made several corrections along the way, and I really had to do some experimenting with the various skin shades. I finished off with the shirt, which was very easy, and did not take much time at all. For my first portrait I am pleased.....I learned a lot, and I am looking forward to doing more portraits in the future. I gave this portrait to my daughter, Jill (Abigail's mother), for Christmas, and she was very pleased with it.

For the next month I will be taking a break from my art work - I will be working on other projects that I need to complete. However, I still have lots of pictures that the girls in my art sessions completed, and I will be posting them every month or so. So, please check back in a few weeks.