Happy Holiday Hound!

I almost never get my act together in time to actually send out cards, but this year I did! I did this one in an old Canson sketchbook I had that has thick brown paper pages, the same paper as grocery store bags!

Wonder Woman!

For those of us children of the '70's Linda Carter will always be Wonder Woman. I did this one from a screen capture from the DVD set of the first season of the show.

Good Dog!

This was my first dog "portrait". Long hair and fur are perfectly suited to this simplified brush style of painting.

Steph

I use some kind of reference for all of these paintings, whether it's from magazines or my own photos. This is from a picture I took of a friend of mine, and while I'm not usually trying for likenesses, this one definitely looks her!

Braid

This is one of my favorites...it's simple and nothing was overworked.

Gentle giant

It wasn't until I recently started painting dogs that it occurred to me that I could be painting more than girl pics...so I'm trying different things.

Jockey hat

This one was all about the jockey hat.

Painting set up....

Here's my simple painting gear for these sketchbook paintings. One well worn #6 bristle filbert brush, and a small plastic tackle box with my limited palette of colors...Titanium White, Yellow Ochre,Primary Magenta, and Ivory black. This is my version of the color palette used by the great 19th century artist Anders Zorn. It is amazing how much color variety you can squeeze out of these few colors!

gone to the dogs!

I've done some quickie dog paintings recently. Simplifying the fur is a good challenge. Keeping the brushstokes broad rather than rendering out every single hair gives it a much nicer, painterly look, working with a big brush helps too!

7 minutes to go....

I always enjoy painting in black and white. I did this one in 7 minutes...I was killing time till,"Lost" came on!

Joan Chen?

I am always grabbing pictures I like out of magazines. I think that this was actress Joan Chen. I'm not usually trying for a likeness, it's usually something else that I'm after, in this case it was the translucent leaf shaped detail of her dress. It's surprising even to me, that sometimes an effect like that can be achieved with just a few brushstrokes.

Hairpins

Most of my sketchbook paintings are about 3-4 inches wide, this one is slightly bigger and I spent a little more time on it...I loved the way the hair was weaving in and out of the hair pins.

Brushy and brown

Using fewer colors is an easy way to achieve color harmony in a painting. This one was done with a really limited palette, so it's more of an exercise in simple brush work and values, but the color works too!

Mr. Hat

Painting girls is the most fun, but who can resist painting a big hat?

Hair cut

Every subject has something that draws you in, in this case it was the cool wedge shaped hair cut.

Happy profile!

I know that a lot of artists tend to steer clear of painting profiles, but I really like them. Lots of good shapes and every one is different.

Sketch painting?

What the heck is "sketch painting"??? Well, in my case it refers to small, quick, loose paintings that I do in my sketchbook, usually in less than an hour. I'm a full time freelance artist and sometimes after drawing all day for work, I just want to,"push some paint around" as a teacher once called it. I purposely use acrylic paint, a limited palette and a big bristle brush so I can't get hung up on the details!