Etsy Treasury

Another artist on Etsy picked one of my newly listed greeting cards for a three day featured spot in a treasury she created. I am really thrilled, considering how much work there is to choose from on the site! Here is the link to see:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=34094

...and more cards

And the first round of printing is done. I wanted to get a good selection to show the owner of the stationer's shop so that she'd have something to pick from. I think my next set will be printed from soft blocks, which have yet to be designed or cut. Busy, busy!

Cards

These are actual printings of some of my new card designs. This particular card was printed using one small block which was turned and printed again and again, each time creating new hearts by connecting with ones which had already printed. You can see the block printed all by itself in the upper left hand part of the design. It ends up being a card about hearts and flowers and leaves.


This one I have called "Cheers" and will be stamped with the letters in red or green or black.


I made this design with one block that has the big swirls and hearts on it, then printed over the whole design six or seven times with the "confetti" block.


I called this one "Tres Flores."



The lovebirds will be stamped with "love."

This one and the following are variations of the first card, repeating the "heart halves" block with more and less ink.



This last one was inspired by finding the shape of a jester's hat in my fun foam discards. I moved fun foam around until I came up with this design. And if you don't think I gave myself a brain cramp figuring out how to do the "4 U," you do not know me well!

Autumn Leaves II

This commission is complete, unless someone wants to give additional critique. The last steps of the painting were to add some leaf groupings. The leaves are really too far away to be seen individually, but we perceive them more as shapes and color. The birch tree was added in the front picture plane with its bright white look in the sunlight and gray shadows.

New Card Designs

Ahh. Time just to sit and let the ideas flow! Just before Christmas, I got the opportunity to put my hand made cards in a downtown stationery store, so I am designing as many as I can while there is some quiet. It is my plan to put unique designs there from my cards at LibertyTown.

It has also been great to get back into my oil paints. I'll have more about my latest work in oil in future posts.

Below are some test prints for the blocks in the top picture. I will be printing in multiple colors and doing some hand painting of the blocks so that the images are colorful and fun.

Progress on Portrait and Landscape

I've tweaked "Cutie-Pie" and gotten a more accurate photo of the actual colors in the portrait. I used Maimeri-blu oil paints in cadmium green, vermillion deep, cadmium orange, burnt sienna and burnt umber and Windsor blue, red shade, Grumbacher flake and titanium white.



The fall picture also got a second layer of color today. I'm using a similar palette to the portrait, with the addition of Windsor blue, green shade, Windsor yellow and permanent rose, and Maimeri-blu naples yellow. I also usually use flake white only when painting portraits because of its warmer tint for lighter skin types.

The next layer will likely be the last and will see the addition of more detail, including the birch tree in white and grays, which should stand off nicely in the foreground.

A Little Bit of This... A Little Bit of That

How nice to have a bit of quiet to begin planning some painting projects! I have begun to do that even as I finish up some commissioned work and hang a show of student work at LibertyTown.

We opened the show of work by students of LT teachers on Friday to a wonderfully enthusiastic crowd. The weather was mild and recent First Night festivities didn't keep all of our regular visitors away. Here is the work of a few of my students from 2008 on the right hand side of the arched entrance to my studio. (The painters of the cardinal and the peppers are not my students.)



On Saturday, I resumed my regular teaching schedule after a break for the holidays, and when that was done, began work on a portrait that had been commissioned in early December. It was fun to paint such a cutie! With a little tweaking, I think I am done with it and will show it to the commission-er this week. It is painted on a 5 x 5 canvas in oil. I had a hard time getting a picture that did not wash out the skin tones too much. The portrait has more color in the face than this picture shows.


I got another request for a fall picture, and so worked in oil on a small canvas, also 5 x 5, of a fall scene in the Fredericksburg area. My mother took the photo when she was visiting us one October. My underpainting is a dark green, and this is the first layer of paint with the background colors of the leaves blocked in. When this layer dries, I will add in the actual leaves in golds, reds, oranges and greens and add a white birch tree on the right just in front of the dark trunk you see here. I will also add touches here and there of the sky which can be seen behind the tree in the photo.