Wine Bag for Charity

I am donating a wine bag to the Heart@Work Auction, which benefits the Susan G Komen Foundation. Traci and her friend will have to raise more than $2,100 and walk 60 miles in three days! What a feat!  The auction/wine tasting event takes place on August 9, 2009 and is located in Montana at The Big Fork Bay Cotton Co.

Here is the wine bag that I have created for them.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation is an excellent organization dedicated to raising money to help find a cure for breast cancer. Click here to find out more about how you can help donate time and/or money for the cause.

To find out more about the Heart @ Work Auction click here:
http://tracisuzannemarvel.blogspot.com/

Good luck Traci!!

Figure Drawing last week!

Here is a charcoal drawing I did last week. It took a few tries to get it right. I had a little trouble with the foreshortening of the foot on the left, but eventually I got it!

It’s an interesting pose. I thoroughly enjoyed myself! As I always do when I go to these classes. This figure drawing class takes place every Thursday at the New Britain Art League. $10 for non-members and $8 for members. Come join us! More info here: www.alnb.org

Drifting — Illustration Friday

Drifting through life, things change from day to day. You can’t fight it you have to accept these things and go with the flow, which is exactly what this dolphin here does. Coincidentally her name is Flo, and she now lives in my sketchbook. It took me longer than I anticipated to get the lighting down, because it started off looking like stripes, not the sunlight reflecting through the surface of the water. I think it works, do you?

This was drawn with a mechanical pencil in a Moleskin sketchbook.

Wine Cozies Now Available in my shop!

I started crocheting awhile ago to keep my hands busy (like they need more things to do!) and I began experimenting and found that I could create most anything with yarn!

This is one of the more simple things to do. It’s basically a tube , but I add my own twist to it using different colors and yarn throughout.

Here are a few of my new items:

The one on the left is made for a standard 750ml wine bottle and is approximately 3″ in diameter. The one on the right is made for a standard 750ml champagne bottle and is approximately 4″ in diameter.

They are both hand crocheted using Lion Suede yarn — they are very soft! You can wash them in warm water and lay flat to dry. Use them again and again.

Everything is customizable, if you want one in a different color, or a different size, just contact me and I’ll get it done for you!

Keep in mind the wine does not come with it!!

New Portrait — Henry and Irie

For this new portrait, I created the sketch first and there was a slight change from the original sketch since the dog on the right (Irie) looked kind of sad. I fixed him up good, and now he’s smiling away!

It was given to the guest of honor at a surprise party for his 50th birthday! I was fortunate enough to be there that evening and below is a picture of the lucky guy with his new gift. (don’t tell anyone, but I think he may have cried a little!)

This portrait was created with pastels on blue paper. The size is 11″ x 14″. Contact me for more details about getting a commissioned portrait done.

Metamorphosis – Finished

*Sigh*
It’s done. It has taken longer than I anticipated due to other projects and life getting in the way. I’ll be starting another one soon… hopefully this one won’t take 6 months to complete!  

This is the final version of the drawing from this post.

 

I transferred the original sketch onto illustration board and brushed on a thin layer of gesso. Just enough so it’s protected but I can still see the sketch underneath. The second step is to lay down the initial color with colored pencils and thin them out with turpentine. I do this to create a background layer and give it more dimension. Sometimes I do it more than once, if necessary. I then go over it with many different layers of colored pencils. I keep my pencils sharp and spray it with fixative if it gets to waxy and can’t take any more pigment.

Final drawing is 21.75″ x 6.5″ created with colored pencils.

Guitar Clock

I created this guitar for Artsake’s Earthsake show. The theme was recycled art, or anything that is earth-friendly, or dealing with the environment. I acquired this guitar from a friend who is an amazing guitar player. The guitar was going to be trashed, but I convinced him I could do something with it. He wanted to smash it “Kurt Cobain style”! I would not let him do it because I really liked the look of the guitar. I thought it could be something beautiful. He didn’t see it at first, because the guitar is actually unplayable. The neck of the guitar is bowed so severely that the strings won’t sit right on the neck. After much convincing and coercing, he agreed to give me the guitar instead of destroying it! He realized that just because it isn’t useful for it’s original purpose doesn’t mean that it can’t be salvaged and given life again. And that’s just what I did.

At first I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it, although I knew it would be perfect for the earthsake show at Artsake. It’s recycled!

I tore the back of the guitar off and carefully drilled a hole in the center of the body where I wanted the hands to go. I was a little worried that it would crack because it’s thin wood, but it didn’t. I then drew out “twelve” down the neck of the guitar and decided to make it blue to stand out. I used oil paint because I’m most familiar with the feel of it, and felt more comfortable using it, as opposed to acrylic. Then I got stuck again. How will I do the other numbers? I knew I had to do something big with “6″ to make it stand out and fill up that space, but I wasn’t sure about “9″ & “3″. And should I include all the numbers? Should I use musical notations to mark them? So many thoughts and ideas, but I didn’t want to go overboard. I came up with a simple and effective way to write Six, so it looked a little like the number. I then decided to go with primary colors to keep it bright and simple. I figured that drawing out every number, or even marking them would be too busy and take away from the simplicity of a guitar clock. So I just made a simple 9 and 3 in their respective places in a font that resembles the font found in musical notations.

There’s my guitar clock. I enjoyed making it and it now hangs in my kitchen ticking away above the kitchen table! If you’d like to purchase it, send me an email!

tick…    tock….      tick             tock

Time to play.

Sorry for the delay…

I know! I know! It’s been over a month since my last post… I’ve been in kind of a funk lately. But I’m trying to get out of it. Being busy with work is no reason to stop creating. In fact it usually helps me get out of it, if I just start drawing. It’s something that I always forget when I’m in a bad mood. 

Next time you see me, if I’m not in the happiest spirits, just ask me if I’ve drawn anything lately. Drawing makes me feel better. It doesn’t matter what I’m drawing, as long as I’m drawing. 

So I guess that’s my advice to anyone who isn’t in a good mood. Just draw something. Anything. It works for me.

Picasso at the Lupin Agile

Emerson Theater Collaborative (ETC) is putting on their 4th production this coming July. Picasso at the Lupin Agile by Steve Martin in Mystic, CT. This play takes place in a bar (the Lupin Agile) in Paris in 1904 and follows the conversation of Einstein and Picasso, two very different and influential minds at the turn of the century.

I have been doing all of ETC’s illustrations as well as the design work since their inception last year. Here is the image that I created for Picasso at the Lapin Agile:

The play is cleverly written by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin!). Picasso and Einstein are two very different types of geniuses. They are both young men at this point in time and are on the verge of greatness. Einstein is about to publish the Special Theory of Relativity followed by the General Theory of Relativity. Picasso was just ending his Blue Period, and was about to enter his Rose Period, (1904-1907) followed by cubism.

Come see this wonderfully clever play this summer!

EmersonTheaterCollaborative.org

The illustration is in pencil, and is approximately 12″ x 8″.

Second Chance Ranch Logo

Second Chance Ranch is a non-profit 501(c)3 animal rescue sanctuary. SCR specializes in sport horse rehabilitation, catering to the horse racing community and specializing in thoroughbreds. They are located in Elma, Washington, and currently have over 30 horses at the ranch.

SCR needed a logo, and after sketching out a couple horses on paper, I scanned a few into the computer and started playing from there. A color scheme had already been picked out by the web designer because they were simultaneously redesigning their website. The web designer and I worked together to narrow down the first few drafts to a style we both liked. From there I played with fonts and placement, and we eventually came to this:

The web designer wanted this to be on a brown background, so we reversed the logo and it now looks like this:

I designed this logo in Illustrator. 

Visit the Second Chance Ranch website now to see my logo in action! www.secondchanceranch.org The website is still a work in progress (as most websites are!). I love the color scheme the web designer chose. I think it works well with the logo.