Spokes

This one was another Christmas present and I just barely finished it in time! I was drawing like crazy, not just on this one but also Carol and Bernie, and Oreo. These portraits make great Christmas presents, but I have to be careful not to overload myself next year. I just barely managed to finish everything in time for Christmas.

So anyway, this is Spokes. Spokes is yet another dog waiting by Rainbow Bridge for the rest of his family to join him and Jennifer and the rest of their family miss him very much. Jennifer asked me to draw his ball too, because that's how much he loved it. In the picture she sent me, he's standing in the snow with his ball in front of him as if to say 'One more throw Mom, it's not that cold!' And despite how drawing spheres is a beginner's first lesson, I've actually never drawn one before! It was kinda interesting :) Spokes himself was easy. Being black, I didn't have to worry so much about texture. I made his edges furry to suggest the texture, but as for the rest, it was just black. The problem I had though was I had to use white as a border between dark places, like his head and back, and his face and chest. I think it turned out ok, but the light places are all weird. The light source was the top right, so the top of his head and back were supposed to be lighter and the shadow goes on the bottom left. But then under his chin is light too because I had to differentiate between his face/chin and his body! I didn't like his paws either, they didn't seem grounded and I realized why after I took this picture - his legs have shadows but his paws don't! So I put some shadows in around his feet and it looked much better after that. Unfortunately, I mailed it off before I could take a picture of the changes, so this is the only picture I have. But it doesn't look too bad:)

Spokes in graphite

Oreo

My latest picture is a cat named Oreo. I'm not sure if there's a Rainbow Bridge for cats, but if there was he'd be there. Probably sunbathing in a tree where the dogs can't bother him :) You can't tell from the drawing, but Oreo only had 3 legs. A lady named Marty asked me to draw her Oreo as a Christmas present for her husband. They both loved him very much :)

Oreo was the first cat I've drawn and I was a little nervous about it, but figured it couldn't be much different than drawing a dog or a horse. The only problem with Oreo is that he was black and white. Which isn't a problem for a cat, but makes drawing him difficult. It's hard to show the texture of the fur when the fur is really dark and it's near impossible to show any texture at all when what you're drawing is pure white. How do you depict texture without using color and turning it gray? Well, the answer I found is to leave the white white and use what's around the white to depict the texture. So the borders between the white and the black are fur-like and that suggests the rest has that texture as well. And where his white fur met the white backround, and for the shadows on his white fur, I had to make small, VERY light strokes to suggest fur. Being self-taught, I'm not sure this is the right way to go about drawing white fur, but I think it turned out nice :)

The other problem was the V on Oreo's back. I really hate drawing long fur/hair, it's a big pain in the butt. But that's probably just because I don't have much experience or practice with it yet. I like to hope it'll get easier, lol. So first I mapped out the major white areas and the major black areas. Then I kinda made the borders less obvious by mapping out some black strands in the white fur and white strands in the black fur. Once I had everything mapped out, I shaded it in and then blurred the borders even more by making strands in the white fur of different widths and various shades of gray. I also erased small hairs in the black fur, but mostly I just added black to the white. I mapped on the side of caution - it's easier to add black than to erase it! Also a side note, I used the same technique for the inside of his ears and I mapped out his white whiskers before I shaded so I could draw around them.

So all in all, I really like how this one turned out. It actually didn't take all that long for all that I was worrying about it. I would've liked to use some artistic license to take out the bump above his head and the bump behind his neck, but I drew it as I saw it *shrug*

Oreo, in graphite

A closeup of Oreo's face. The photos never seem to capture the little details that make the drawings so realistic (hey, I'm an artist, not a photographer!), so I decided to take a closeup picture

Three Dachshunds

Here's my latest picture, the three dachshunds Trish commissioned me to draw for her neighbors for Christmas. I only got Tilly's name, she's the long-haired dachshund on the right. This picture took a loong time! The did the middle dachshund first. I love how the eyes turned out in this drawing! My first really good, realistic eyes :) I did the left dachshund second. These first two were in the same picture, sitting on a couch. Tilly was in a separate picture, which was horrible. Trish was having a hard time getting a picture of her, she's a puppy and pretty much refuses to sit still. The only picture I got was really out of focus, so I had to do some research and make up the little details. I think the long hair and ears turned out really well! Long hair is hard and I don't have much experience with it. But practice makes perfect, right? :D

Home 4 the Holidays

Today was Home 4 the Holidays, the craft fair at the Nevada Humane Society. And we had a great time! I forgot my business cards ^^; but it was a blessing in disguise. I've been suspicious that every time I give away a card, it ends up in the trash. I haven't had ONE person call or email me from my cards - it's all from the information I've gathered. So not having any cards was a blessing in disguise because every time someone asked for one, I'd tell them they were out and they would write their information down instead. So now instead of them finding my card a week later and tossing it, I can bug them until they email me a picture to draw :D I got twice as many names and email addresses today than I did at the Dogtoberfest. I just spent almost an hour emailing all these people back! Hopefully I'll get some responses :)

Dogtoberfest :)

So the Dogtoberfest was today and we did great! We had KTVN News 2, KRNV News 4, KOLO News 8, Alice 96.5, and Sunny 106.9 all there advertising the excitement and we got a ton of people coming to check us out! (Hopefully the news clips will be online in the next few days and then I'll upload them) The Canine Rehabilitation Center and Sanctuary got a ton of donations (still to be counted) and several families interested in some of their dogs, hopefully soon-to-be-adopted dogs. But most of all it was a lot of fun for everyone involved! There were several businesses/companies/organizations there advertising their respective businesses/companies/organizations, all while supporting CRCS. A few of them were organizations dedicated to rescuing dogs that were completely separate from CRCS. Boxers and Buddies and Nevada Greyhounds Unlimited were both there, organizations that rescue their respective breeds and adopt them out. And of course there were a ton of dogs and even more people - it was crowded!!

Briar and Breeze sure had fun! They were my main means of attracting customers, lol. People would see Breeze immediately, go over to pet her, see Briar and pet him, and then look at my stuff and sometimes take a card. Breeze loves everyone, but I had to keep an eye on Briar. Every once in a while, he'd try to scare off a customer or two. My own dog trying to scare off my customers! :O (Kinda funny how Briar was always lovable and Breeze came to us with some behavioral issues, and now she's the sweeter of the two. Chris had a field day with that information). By the time we were done 5 hours after arriving, they were both exhausted. It must be a lot of work sitting there, being so cute, and being doted on by so many people!

But anyway, I handed out a couple dozen business cards (new ones specifically for my portraits - I had them made this week!) and got a few peoples' names and emails who were especially interested. So hopefully I should be getting a few commissions soon! :D

My booth at the Dogtoberfest. I know it looks like I'm scowling, I'm really trying not to go blind. The sun was in my eyes the entire event and both me and Chris got really sunburnt!

Dogtober Fest!

Started a new drawing. Blondie was my last commission :( so now I can draw whatever I want :) I promised my best friend Chris I'd draw him and his dog Breeze, so that's what I'm working on at the moment. I'm already pretty far, I have the picture completely mapped out and I'm starting to shade him in (and he looks scary!! He only has one eye and half his teeth because the rest are in the shadows and as an outline, he looks like a bad Halloween costume. But he'll look better when I'm done of course.)

I recently made a new friend, Kristin Ivey, founder of the Canine Rehabilitation Center and Sanctuary. She takes the humane society one step further - she adopts NHS dogs and other dogs in need and fosters them out to people great patience, like me (I'm currently fostering one of her dogs, for more information, see my new blog) and she matches them up with the perfect forever home. I got in touch with her in order to help dogs who need help... and unexpectedly found another outlet for my portraits! The Dogtober Fest on Saturday the 13th is going to be an event even bigger than the Doggie Palooza with infinitely more advertising than Wildflower Village. It's being hosted by the Legends outlet mall, Alice 96.5, Sunny 106.9, and a bunch of other businesses, including me. A booth cost $100. I was wary of paying it at first because my other shows have been a bust and I'm not sure how many customers I'm going to get, but I had a little extra money and this event is much more public and even if I don't get any customers, my $100 went to a good cause. So with that decision made and the money already taken out already, now I'm looking forward to the party! Music, food, dogs, face paining.... what's not to like?! o(≧∇≦)o

Chris and Breeze. Chris looks pretty scary, huh?

Blondie

Blondie in graphite

Got a little more practice with negative space drawing with this one. I started off with Blondie, my aunt and uncle's doe. If you look at his left ear and his muzzle, you can see this white whiskers, drawn (for lack of a better word) with negative space. I did the same thing with the rocks, the shadows are colored in and the top, light part of the rocks have little color, but more detail. I don't like how the rocks turned out. I think they're decent considering it was my first attempt drawing rough rocks up close, but I don't think they're up to my self-imposed near-perfect standards. But I am most definitely my own worst critic, so maybe the look fine and I just can't see it objectively. In my opinion, the negative space backfired. The shadows are too dark ad the li is too light and the result is you tend to focus more on the shadows than the surface part of the rocks, where the surface part is supposed to jump out at you. I think par of the this is Blondie is to light so it diminishes the effect of the light surface and makes the too-dark shadows pop. I also think the trees in the background look strange, but its in the background so it works. I had trouble with the sky again, getting it perfectly shaded and perfectly blended, but luckily there weren't any clouds to 'undraw'. Although, come to think of it, that's negative space drawing too. Learning new techniques all the time :)