Scout was my model for this watercolor. He often howls at passing sirens. Using my imagination, I created a new setting and turned him into a coyote. What I enjoyed in creating this piece was creating the underlying values (lights versus darks) and then over-painting with local color. The atmosphere treatment is something I've done in other work, but really focusing on values and shadows helped me pull this together. AND it was a joy to paint.
The Little Thief came from a number of drawing sessions. The drawing is from my imagination, but the idea is based on a real incident that happened in a neighbor's garden. Yep, rats love tomatoes and they will win. The impressionistic background is new for me as I wanted to be at rat's eye level. And again, it was a joy to paint.
I've also been working on my second children's book called One Medium Onion. The underlying story is Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Oh yes, I'm simplifying this.
An onion gets loose and meets all sorts of animals who have an opinion on whether or not it's a medium onion. In the above double -paged spread Einstein asks, "Which one of these do you think is a medium?"
This is a double-paged spread of the kitten's opinion. I was a little gratuitous in my kitten drawing. My friend David's cat Brahma was my model for this kitten.
The onion travels to many places including the barnyard. In the double-paged spread, the chickens assert their opinion right before a pig noses in.
The work is still in production, but I'm almost done with the painting. Painting the different animals and giving them voice has been the best fun. There's a surprising twist to this story so stay tuned.
First proof came in on Scout and the Space Cats and it had a few issues to correct. I'm waiting on the second proof from the print on demand service before publishing and offering for sale. Lordy, I know I keep saying "soon, soon, soon" but really I promise it's going to happen.
Meanwhile a piece of Scout and the Space Cats was juried into an exhibition in St. Louis, MO at Webster Arts Center. It's a three minute video of the pet friendly opening event. The juror Kim Carr talks about how she selected the pieces for the show. There's some absolutely gorgeous pieces of art included in this exhibition. If you make it all the way to the end of the video, my piece was used as part of the video. I was delighted to see my work in the promotional materials.
Hey, April, your blog looks funny - what's going on. This month I've been heads down re-organizing my website and I'm not done yet. Some pages look great like the home page. I had some complaints that reading white text on a black background was difficult. Lo and behold, I get here where I have a white background and the color black is not an option for text. What the Hell WIX app!
Back in the late 80's, I was told (and maybe you were too) that all this computer stuff was going to eventually make our lives easier. My life hasn't been made easier yet by this mess. I'm still annoyed and they keep creating crap and expecting us to like it. I'm not impressed.
There will be more soon so stay tuned.