Friday, May 4, 2007

A Gift for Mom

Since my Christmas card is still very much in progress, I don't have anything really new to post this week. So I guess I'll post this:

I finished this piece a couple months ago, but I couldn't post it anywhere until just recently since it was a birthday gift for my Mom. (Her birthday was Tuesday!)

I picked a personal mother-daughter theme for this one. When I lived at home, we would go out to coffee all the time. It was one of our favorite things to do. Without giving away what I was doing, I tried to grill her on her favorite animals, colors, etc. to figure out the details of the painting. I spent a long time on Flickr trolling around for good reference photos of blue flowers. The lily-of-the-valley were thrown in for variety and because they are my mom's birth-flower (and mine too!).

If anyone is interested in prints, they are at my shop.

One more little piece I sketched out this week:

It's my first ever ACEO. For those that don't know, ACEO means "art cards editions & originals" and they always measure 2.5"x3.5". I'd noticed how many fantasy artists seem to be producing these and it seems like a good, quick way to put down an idea that you otherwise might not have time to complete. So, one day I cut up some left-over board into various small-format sizes and tossed them into a drawer. I thought it would be nice to just be able to grab a piece of scrap board and slap down an idea. Of course, knowing me, I have to draw it out on paper before I can "slap" anything down. I'm sure I'll make this into more of a production than I originally intended....

Usually my ideas wouldn't work out too well as small formats, but I finally had one that seemed ideal for an ACEO. The idea for this one came from a dream. Not a terribly original dream, but a dream nonetheless. It's probably difficult to see, but there's a snowflake drifting down toward her hands, hence the pending title: "Winter's Last Snowflake."

I guess that's it for this week. Thanks for stopping by!

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