Okay FINISHED! :-) Bad photo - per usual! That's the workshop I need - learning how to photograph your artwork well. I also need a better camera!

Someone asked me what color red I used on the shoes so I'll give a description of how I built up the shoes.

You could say I did an underpainting for them but I always work piece by piece and never do a proper full underpainting underneath - I am just too impatient. I first marked out the little white highlight with white. In the light areas of the shoe, I put Prisma peach and in the dark areas Derwent Coloursoft Loganberry. Loganberry is a lot like tuscan red in prismacolor. That is it for the so called underpainting - just peach where I want the RED lightest and loganberry where I want dark red and a good deal of the shoe with neither on it. I never use white in the underpainting because it is so waxy that it is hard to layer on top of.

Then I built up the RED of the shoe. I layered pale vermillion over the peach and partially into the loganberry. Then I layered poppy red over the pale vermillion (leaving a good deal of the pale vermillion as is for the lit part of the shoe) and over all the loganberry. Then I layered crimson red over the poppy and loganberry areas leaving some poppy exposed. I usually call this bridging the two colors - making them blend together.

Then I used some black where I felt like it just needed that bit of EXTRA DARK - which wasn't much. I also used a bit of kelp green to subdue the red in a couple of places and a bit of Derwent acid yellow in the sunlit part of the shoe to really set it off.

Some of the steps were repeated and repeated - going back and forth between the two if needed. For instance, after I put the reds over the loganberry I layered loganberry once more over the reds.

Red shoes 2 - In Progress

I didn't get that 14 hours I had with the other shoes so this is still in progress. I should be able to finish it today. :-) As you can see my photo is terribly distorted so I just decided not to crop it and let you all see pieces of my back porch in there. Now you can see why I pay to have my artwork photographed!

Summer Time!

2.5" x 3.5" - NFS

I guess its finally summer here in New Hampshire. Its hot and the kids finally get out of school this Wednesday. Yes they are still in school - I think we go the latest in the country! We're making up for those winter snow days now.

I love summer and doing things with the kids - we go swimming a lot at a nearby lake and sometimes trek out to the ocean which is a good 2 hours away. I don't look forward to those days that the kids are just bored bored bored though. You know what I mean - when all the other kids on the block are at camp during the day or on vacation and the heat outside starts to be a burden instead of fun. To the kids they expect to be doing something everyday but it just plain costs too much to be doing something all the time.

We get all these fliers at the end of the school year for all the different day camps going on and my daughter really wanted to go to art camp. I just can't afford to send her to day camp when I'm at home anyway so we've decided to have our own art camp - why not right? Now I can't wait for summer vacation! My plan is we go on little picnics for art camp in different places around towns, and invite her friends to come along - we eat, we draw or paint from nature, the kids can run around and its FREE! :-) I like that bit a lot!

I'm going to start that second larger piece with those red shiny shoes today! I took off yesterday and the day before for Father's Day - tidied up the house Saturday which it really needed after getting so many drawings done. MORE DRAWING DONE = LESS LAUNDRY DONE. Sigh. BUT I'm back to work and will hopefully have something to post soon!

I Heart Shoes - bigger

Here it is at 11 x 14." I worked on this yesterday from 9 am to 11 pm with taking 1 break to mow the lawn. I think that is part of why I'm fast. I get into then and can't stop. Working on something 14 hours straight is completely different than working a bunch of days for one or two hours. OK I'm fast with my strokes too but I do think there is something to having a large amount of time dedicated to it.

Carousel

What a great day today. Its super nice outside and have already gone for a walk through our downtown, which has had so much traffic blocked off because of the construction of a traffic circle, that it is such a peaceful place to walk now as most of the cars are gone for the summer.

The best thing, though, was when I got home a big box from the Pampered Chef was waiting for me by my door! I thought my mom must have went to a Pampered Chef party - but no - it was from someone who was on the cruise with me in Alaska - my new friend Fannie. :D She sent me aspinny carousel, that is usually used for utensils, to put my colored pencils in! She must have felt sorry for my with my system of ziploc bags which held my pencils. Can you tell I'm excited? Well I've already put it to use and emptied out that ziploc bag! They call it a "Tool Turn-About" at the Pampered Chef if you want to get one.

Woo-hoo! OK I'm just starting to work on the red shoes larger. I'm going 11 x 14" with them. & I'm using my new carousel too!