Color Wheel - WIP 3 - need advice!

I didn't have much time to work on this this weekend, but was able to sneak in a bit here and there. My regular art days are Thursday and Friday, so I hope to accomplish more on those days.

The background hasn't really been touched yet except for the upper left hand corner. I am playing around with the idea of adding squashed fruits to the white backdrop. I'd love to hear what you think about that? Would it be too much? My daughter and I dutifully squashed some berries for reference. I was thinking a nice squashed yellow tomato too?  I've played with it on photoshop with a diagonal arrangement from the right upper corner of the paper to the lower left. Please let me know your thoughts!

On another note, have you gotten Ann Kullberg's Magazine for Colored Pencil Artists this month (March 2012)? It is an awesome issue. I absolutely adored the article by Pamela Belcher on the art she did after traveling to India. It is such a good idea and something I would like to play with myself. She made a sort of grid work (a wonky one) and then drew in scenes from India in each of the boxes. I am not making it sound as cool as it is. 

Also Sheila Theodoratos' work is featured  as well as Nancy Jacey's colorful work. It is so inspiring!

Color Wheel - WIP 2

Here's Day 2! I'm having a lot of fun with this. I was worried that I might not be able to improve upon the photograph I took of the food, because I don't really see the point if I can't and the photograph turned out really good. I am finding that doing it in colored pencils however is really helping the color effect because I can "fudge" a bit on the colors to get them to flow a bit better together. 

Color Wheel - WIP 1

I am so close to finishing the book I can taste it... but I have to admit it tastes a bit foul right now. No, I am not disappointed with the book - I just need a break from  it before I go through with the first edits.

So I decided to do a still-life. All this time working on the book has allowed me to fantasize about what still-lifes to do. I really would like to do some that overlap my interests with my other blog I have with my sister: www.mealpod.blogspot.com about healthy eating.

So I went for it and started a food color wheel. It is large: 24" x 30," so the food is just ever so slightly larger than life size. To give you an idea of the size the platter in real life is 18" round and the platter on the paper is 19" round. Not much different.

Today's post is the first day... not much done yet because I had to draw my general shapes on there first and the day is now over.

It is on Fisher 400 paper mounted on Gatorboard and I am using all Coloursoft pencils.

New Sneak Peak - Hair

Another book sneak peak!  Hair! Enjoy! Getting seriously close to finishing! I have been craving some food still-lifes. Sigh. soon. very soon.

Valentines at the Caulfield House

I thought instead of a book update today (I worked on hair this week) I'd show you the valentines my girls and I are making.

My daughter REALLY wanted to get personalized candy hearts that said "Meh" like Lisa in the Simpsons. We looked at buying some online and they were so expensive that we decided to try and make our own. My husband had bought a stamp set from Staples that stamps tiny little letters that you position yourself, so we used that with a bit of food coloring on a paper towel.  Of course we didn't have blank hearts to stamp on so we used a cheese grater to grate the old words off. So sand the old letters off, then squeeze some food coloring on a paper towel folded up, and dab on the stamp. Quickly position the stamp and roll and press towards you to stamp. Oila - Your very own MEH candy hearts! You do have to remember to place the letters on the stamp backwards for printing!

We also made some chocolate treats with a chocolate mold and ring op rings I've been saving from old ring pops. I put the instructions to those on my food blog if you would like to see how to make them. I made them with dark chocolate instead of store bought candy melts.

 

 & last but not least some tea valentines. I saw how to make the sugar cubes and tea bags on Martha Stewart. com and put the two together to make the valentine. I should mention I bought the little plastic bags for these and the meh candy hearts in the chocolate molding section of Michaels, and just cut some cardstock to fold over and staple to the top.

Okay now I will get back to the book. I did all the examples for the mouth and hair sections now (btw do you know what a philtrum is?).