Superbowl!

I haven't gotten to work on the third Lucian painting yet. He might be the hardest. He's got stripes in his face and his fur is short so it shows more texture than the dogs. So it could take a while to paint. I might have to work on that next week.

This weekend is of course the Superbowl! I haven't made any cakes in a while, so I thought I'd do something for the party. I didn't feel like making a logo cake like I did last year....then the year before I did a clashing helmet cake (good thing the Colts and the Browns didn't have complex logos!). So, I decided to go with cupcakes.

I looked up the official team colors on wikipedia and did a batch of half Cardinal's colors and half Steeler's. I think they came out pretty good. I like icing them, but mixing the colors takes a while and it gets pretty messy.

I'm not really into either of these teams this year, so I'll probably root for the underdog...which is the Cardinals?? Eh...maybe I'll stick with Pittsburgh...

painting, part 2

I finished this painting of Snorty on Saturday. Probably took me a good 5 hours while listening to the Food Network in the background. I got a good headache after doing it. I guess acrylics have some type of toxic odor, although you can't really smell it while using them.

This photo looks better than the real thing. I added more of the color in between the light blue and white, as seen on the right cheek. I used it sparingly in the one I did of Mac, but in this one I mixed in too much of the light blue, when I should have used more white. So in reality, that lighter light blue kind of merges into the light blue...unless you are looking at it in a certain light.

Ah well. With these mistakes/lessons, I should be able to perfect the last painting of Lucian!

painting, part 1

Here is my first attempt at paint.

It's acrylics. It turned out pretty good except I didn't mean to go all the way black. The black was meant to be a dark blue. I have no sense of color mixing, and added too much black to the already darkish blue. Also, the dark blue I used is too close to the shade of black. I wanted more of an medium blue. It looked better with the first coat, but you could see my strokes, so I went over it again with another coat and made it waaaay too dark. Oh well. I know what to do for the next one.

I also learned that cheap paints are cheap. The blue I used for the "medium blue-turn-dark blue" and the white were cheapies. And I had to do two coats for both of those colors. The others, not so bad.

Next up is Snorty.

Happy belated new year!

So December was a blur and so was the beginning of January. Lots of stuff happened, mostly good, I think, except that I haven't really done much artistically. I actually have done lots of work, just mainly stuff for my online classes, a nail salon website, and a t-shirt design for a half marathon (which was a contest...which I didn't win...b@stards!) But all of it is not worth posting here.

[[ Oh, I did do a couple family holiday photo shoots, which can be seen on my website. I do think those turned out lovely :) ]]

I am, however working on my first ever painting! I've been thinking about it for over a year, but just now got the balls to start it. It's going to be a triptych of my pets. And they will be graphic, as opposed to realistic, so it's not too hard to do... or so I thought. Well, it's not hard at all, it's just taking lots of time. I'm doing it in a sort of paint by numbers style, so I'm just painting on shapes of color, no blending involved.

I'm working with acrylics because they dry fast. Easy to work with, but still they have to dry and I'm impatient, so it's taking a while. I really want the work day to be over with so I can work on it! (...as I type this during my working hours...heehee) I did a bit on my lunch break, which was nice. It's very therapeutic...

I will definitely post photos of it when I'm done. I'm proud of myself for starting this!

I also have a few other freelance projects: Masato (in Pooler) website and another wedding invitation. Gotta love the word of mouth! So I will be super-busy in the next few weeks... I also have to finish up 3 more classes by the beginning of March! eep!