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Showing posts from April, 2015

Animal Quilt - Elephant

I started with the elephant in this painting.  I put down a medium gray in the darkest areas and a light gray in the lightest areas. I darkened in the main body/legs area and trunk and put a layer of white down for the tusks. As you can see from the first picture the tusk on the right was fairly far out and I decided I didn't like it there so I moved it further in.  I added some dark wrinkles along the trunk, forehead and ear areas and then I let the whole picture dry. Next, I added the background in browns and yellows trying to mimic the African savannah. I was trying to go for an elephant stepping out of the dust. I added more highlights and darkened the shadows and I added a bit of brown. Elephants are pretty dirty after all. This one was fairly easy to get done and probably took me 4 hours which includes 2 hours of drying time.

CWAGS Scent Trial - Levels 2, 3 and 4

On Saturday, April 18, River and I attended a C-WAGS Scent trial at Anything Goes for Dogs in Marysville. Although, there were 3 levels River and I entered Level 2. There were two searches at Level 2 and she qualified in 1 search.  Most of the dogs didn't do well on the first search for some reason. As for River, she's pretty excited in new areas and won't settle down for a while but she got into the rhythm on the second search but barely. There's also going to be a Scent League during the summer what should be a lot of fun and hopefully River will be able to earn a title or two.

Animal Quilt - Leatherback Turtle

This portrait of a baby leatherback turtle was really quite easy to get done. I guess because there's not that many colors.  Painting wet sand is not fun either. I had to use a dark brown with yellow and a darker brown. I applied the white and gray for the turtle first then added the yellow/brown for the sand. I then darkened the turtle with black and added some highlights with white.  I used white to add water reflections in the wet sand and that was pretty much it. Not the greatest painting I've done but not bad either.

Animal Quilt - Center Panel Part 1

The main centerpiece of my quilt is roughly 33x45" so it's fairly big, especially to be painting with inks.  I wanted my main animal to be the one that speaks to everyone. I chose the Black Rhino for the center since there is a very real possibility the animal will be extinct in the wild in the next decade or two and they will only exist in zoos. I'm thinking about the title of "Footprints" for my quilt but as of right now, I don't have any footprints in my centerpiece. I had thought about putting different animal footprints on the back of the quilt, but I haven't decided yet. I could always finish it and simply change the title. So I will continue working on this centerpiece. Even if I decide to make another one this one is still pretty good and deserves to be finished. I'll probably have to order more ink, though. I finished the rhino.  I'm pretty happy with it but I don't know if this will be in my quilt or not.  I'll have

Animal Quilt - Panda

This painting of a panda came together quickly and I was able to control most of the bleeding.  I first painted the white areas of the panda, then a I added a gray to the black areas. I let that dry and added the background and gray rock the panda is on. I did have some bleeding but I don't think its that noticeable. After everything dried, I went back over my gray areas with black, added dark green veins to the leaves and added fur. My brush really did all the work. Its quite frayed for lack of a better term and is all different lengths which creates a more streaky brush stroke.  I really like how this one turned out.

Animal Quilt - Mexican Woodnymph Hummingbird

This little hummingbird lives in western Mexico and is losing its habitat. This isn't one of the typical animals you think of when you think "endangered." Most people think panda, rhino, tiger but there are others. Lots of others animals that are endangered and this little bird hasn't been studied all that much. I started with the background first. I had a lot of bleeding over even though I tried to control it. Next, I worked on the flower and adding color to the bird. After that dried, I added details such as the eyes, flower highlights and black, yellow and white dots to the bird. I thought the white highlights on the flowers would seep into the paint a little bit better and wouldn't be as harsh as they are now. I may try to fix it but I may not. You can also see a faint dark line around the birds belly and feet area. That's the original drawing using the Frixion pen. That line will disappear when I iron it.

Animal Quilt - Sea Turtle

I'm still having trouble controlling the bleeding of these inks.  As you can see, at the top of the shell, there was major bleeding. I've been blotting with paper towels trying to soak up any excess water or ink before it bleeds but it doesn't really work all that well.  I left this to dry and when I came back the inks had wicked out a lot. Its also really hard to get rid of those hard dry lines and if you want to put a lighter color on top of the darker ink it won't work. You'll have a dark ugly spot in your lighter area.  You have to paint over it with the more opaque white, let it dry then paint over it, which also has its problems. My first application of paint, is just to rough in the areas with a light wash of color, then I simply keep adding darker areas, until I'm happy. Apply highlights, white or light colors, after everything is dry. I added the blue and brown/yellow areas (water/sand) last. You can see how the dark bleed area looks after