The Exhibition!

These are the other three paintings that I showed at the exhibition...I had five in all. I ended up selling the zebra, and a sunset that I posted a photo of awhile back. :) It was a really great experience, and I met a lot of other artists. It was a long day, but I really enjoyed it. 

I like how this sunset turned out, but it looks COMPLETELY different from the reference. To the point where the only similarity is that it's a beach scene and the land is black. 20x30 inches, 8 hours of work. 

I wanted something bright, cheerful, and Liberian. I based this painting off of a photo I took up in Lofa county, here in Liberia. I really enjoyed the textures in this. 20x20 inches, about 7 hours of work.

This one's small - 8x10 inches, about 5 hours of work. I really enjoy working in black and white. A good friend of mine purchased it on Saturday. :) 

Ocean Wave

My art teacher has been trying to convince me to participate in the biannual Embassy craft fair here in Monrovia. He finally succeeded, and we were scheduled to sell at the one in December. Eight months is plenty of time to prepare, right??

Well, we got switched to the one in May. May 8th, to be precise. In. Ten. Days.

I have two paintings ready.

I'm hoping to do at least five more.

Pray for my soul.

I will be exhibiting the tiger previously posted, and one I just finished - a wave. Also my first completely solo painting. My teacher never touches or fixes my paintings for me, but he does tell me when I'm doing something wrong or gives me advice on what I need to do. It was hard at first to paint without any coaching, but once I got into it there was no going back. :) Pretty happy with how this turned out.

Alona Daire

I've always wanted to try and draw my characters. Well, tonight I did. This is Alona Daire, my MC's ally. She's a serious, quiet person - not shy, just quiet - but has a good sense of humor and is usually willing to try something new.

I started with a reference, just to get the facial structure correct, but then from there I did my own thing. The only thing that looks the same now is the nose. :P

The hair still needs work, but I'm too lazy to do that right now :D

Tiger

So my teacher and I are going to be doing an exhibition this fall, and this is the first of hopefully ten paintings that I will be showing/selling.

When I started this painting. I had no idea how complicated it was, how long it would take - and also how rewarding it would end up being. I am so, so happy with how it turned out. Even if it drove me crazy for awhile there.

This painting took 15+ hours to complete.

Layer #1 was pretty much painting the background black and the rest pale gray. The eyes and nose were lined with black.

Layer #2 I painted all the stripes on. Still wasn't looking great, as the black stripes were transparent and needed another coat.

Layer #3 I went over all the gray areas, texturing it for the fur that was to come, and adding darker and lighter grays for shading. I allowed this to enter the black so that it would look smooth, and then went over the black stripes again, letting the texture enter the gray the way the fur will flow...if that makes any sense. I also shaded the eyes and nose.

Layer #4 I took light gray paint and, with thin strokes, painting fur over all the gray areas between the stripes. Also allowing the gray to enter the black in the direction of the fur.

Layer #5 I went over all the highlights with strokes of white to create the illusion of fur. Entering black where needed.

Layer #6 I took black and used small strokes that entered the gray in the direction of the fur. I also went and painted the eyes again, finished the nose.

Layer #7 was just touching up wherever needed, and then going through the stress of painting the whiskers without messing up the whole painting. o.o And then, of course, signing my work. :3

Horses

Just started using the new sketchbook I got for Christmas...still missing my normal pencil, but I like how these turned out :)

Jane

I've managed to lose both my art pencil and my blending stump...so I resorted to sketching with a plain mechanical pencil and experimenting with cross-hatching. I rather like how it turned out, actually :) 

(Jane Bennett, from Pride and Prejudice)

Experimental Sketches!

Okay, so I've been branching out with my sketching...since my Bristol paper warps here and nothing shades right in this humidity, I can't do my full-blown realistic pencil drawings.

Thus, I've been doing more sketches, and my most recent inspiration has been Studio Ghibli...

Needless to say, HOWL

Like I said, not my normal!! I DID have a reference - I am not capable of watching something and then drawing the characters in a style so completely different from my own. ;) But still, I think it's a good start, and I really love the result.

Also, by Theo's request - Aang, from Avatar: The Last Airbender. :3

Various Paintings

I've gotten several paintings done recently but I've only just now gotten around to posting them. :P

This is a more traditional Liberian painting - less blended. My favorite part is probably the sky...but I also loved doing the grass. My least favorite part would be drawing the boy and trying to get his fishing pole right. :P I have found that details are easy for me...it's straight, simple lines that give me such a hard time. 

Anyway, I took this to a Christmas gift exchange and I'm happy to say it ended up with someone who loves it. ^.^

This one was a commission (!!!) from a good family friend. It's based off of a photo my sister took at the beach here in Liberia. At first I wasn't sure I would like it - after all, the first coat was that ugly pink color that you only find in old lady's bathrooms - but now that I've finished with it I like how...crisp it feels. :3

I sent it back with my brother and sister (who were visiting for Christmas) and it has since been recieved by said friend!

Never judge a painting by it's first coat...for example, this one just below was supposed to be the beginning of a seascape. 

And here, it begins to shape up...the whole first coat done, and second coat and details on the sky.

And this one is an awful photo. For comparision, in reality the finished sky is just as bright as the last picture...I took this photo at night in fluorescent lighting. Bad mistake. I sent it to America with the siblings, so I have no way of taking a better picture.

But still! As you can see, it DID end up being a seascape after all. 

Inktober

Yeah, I know it's November...but I semi-participated in Inktober. Meaning, I did probably a dozen ink drawings. As I am not used to ink, and there's no erasing, I messed up quite a few, but I enjoyed it while I did it.

This one was one of my first, and while I originally based it off of a reference photo, I ended up changing it quite a bit, so now it doesn't resemble. Still, I like how it turned out.

Arabians make amazing subjects if you're going for contrast. This one is tiny, and was drawn on the corner of a piece of paper, but I really love how it turned out. As you can see, I was trying a little different technique than I did with the face.

And another horse. Of course.

And HAIR

I have found a love for inking hair

It's addictive

and lovely

So anyway I did draw the whole face, but I didn't like how the mouth turned out, so. They eyes and the hair make me happy. :3 

And there you go.

Painting

I've always wanted to  paint, but starting was the hardest part. In America, good, quality acrylic or oil paint is expensive, and then you have to buy the brushes, the canvas, everything. It gets complicated. And for someone like me, a teenager in a third world country, how was I ever going to be able to LEARN how to paint?

My mom met an artist at a craft fair, and he agreed to teach my friend and I how to paint. Little did we know. 

First, where do you get your canvas? 

You learn to stretch it yourself. Our teacher got canvas cloth, wooden frames (although the ones in this photo aren't the proper wooden frames; we fixed that later), and...shoe tacks. You nail the canvas onto the frame, stretching it as tight as you can. 

Next, primer. 

We bought a bucket of white water paint, added a little more water, and wood glue. We coated the canvas, and then we were ready for painting!

Unfortunately, to buy one tube of 'cheap' acrylic paint is crazy expensive, so we got to make our own. We got oil house paint from the store - red, yellow, blue, black, and white. We opened them up and set them on the coal pot (sorry - no picture) until the paint began to boil. We broke plain wax candles and removed the wick. We then added those to the boiling paint, stirring until the wax had mixed in completely.

Taking it off the fire, we set the bucket of paint in water so that it would cool, constantly stirring. After that, we let it sit...and thicken!

It may not be the best paint in the world, but we've done pretty well with it. Three months later, we still have plenty of paint, and the paintings far outweigh the costs of the materials! 

My teacher wanted me to start with a flower. 

I'm very happy with the result! 

Since then, I've painted quite a bit - we do lessons every Saturday. I don't have photos of all of my paintings, but here are a few of the recent ones. 

'Bold' is the word for this one. Thankfully, that's what I was going for. I painted the whole background first, and then the tree and the elephants. 

I am super happy with this one. Normally I'm a pencil artist, so I'm used to black and white shading. I found this one immensely satisfying, even if it did take forever! I'm estimating around fourteen hours, but I didn't keep track. 

Also pleased to announce that I SOLD it. Like, someone asked me if they could buy it and they actually did. :D

Holmes

Well, all the puppies are gone, save one. It's sad, but I'm very happy that we found homes for them all! I was really worried for awhile. 

Anyway, this one, that I called Holmes, was the first to go and left back in December. His new name is Bailey, and he's doing awesome in his new home! He was by far the most laid-back puppy of the litter, and so sweet and friendly. :D

Done in black crayon. I'm not fond of the background, but you can't erase crayon, so. :P

Puppies

This post is actually really late. We have puppies...ten of 'em! And they're already six weeks old. :P

Before the puppy comes the mom. Beatrice is my baby (one of them, anyway).

She's half Great Pyrenees, half Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix.

We're not quite sure what the father is, but some kind of hunting dog. 

So I checked out a book - 'The Dog Owner's Veterinary Handbook.' I read a few chapters of it. Then, maybe a week later, we figured out that Beatrice was pregnant.

So I read the whole section 'Pregnancy and Whelping.' It was very in-depth and I really enjoyed it.

The morning started with Bea getting herself stuck under the wash house (an outbuilding that we use as a toolshed but call the wash house). We had to dig her out because she had evidently forgotten about her massive stomach. Once we had gotten her out, she paced around for awhile.

Well, wouldn't you know, I found her less than an hour later under the back porch with three babies. We moved them to her whelping box.

I won't gross you out with details, but I delivered the rest of the puppies, and happily saved the lives of three of them. I definitely recommend that book. 

In the picture above there's actually only nine puppies...that tenth one came as a bit of a surprise. I guess they all did, in a way.

The pictures below were taken a few weeks ago.

This one doesn't have a nickname, but he is definitely adorable. Has a little more of a hound look to him, especially now (but I don't have any more recent pictures)

And this one's Barbossa - he's all white with that one dark patch over his eye. He's very friendly and loves to cuddle - and eat. 

I don't normally play favorites, but this is my favorite. Nicknamed Gandalf. He is gorgeous and friendly and so sweet. Besides, it's not every day you get a mix that looks like this! He's the only 'true' gray in the litter, plus the biggest. Isn't he just so stinkin' adorable? This is a more recent picture of him (actually only taken a few days ago. :3 He's HUGE. Look at those paws. 

And this is Mademoiselle. 

She always wants to be held and cuddled and is always the first to greet me when I walk in the door. She and her sister look very similar but her sister (Penguin) is slightly bigger, sweet but more enthusiastic, and has more white on her belly.

I don't have any more 'single' pictures, but here's a few group ones.

Holmes is another one that we've nicknamed, but I don't have a specific picture of him. He's a shy little brown hound. <3

There are more puppies than those that I've listed, but they're unnamed or I don't have pictures. :)

But aren't they all so ADORABLE?

NaNoWriMo

We all know what that means. And if you don't, you're about to figure it out. NaNoWriMo comes creeping up on me every year. Six months beforehand I think, "I'll just start outlining now, and then I'll have a whole story ready to be written by November!" Ah, yeah. So I said. Never actually happened...funny how that works.

So the goal is to get 50,000 words in one month. 30 days. 

This is my fourth year, so of course I'm going to do it. I hadn't actually written a novel since LAST NaNo, but whatever. It would work out.

We left on the 30th of last month on a trip, and we're still on that trip. My birthday happened on the 2nd. Thus, I didn't actually get started until the 4th, thousands of words behind.

Day before yesterday I had a wordcount of 2,000 words. I decided - two thousand words a day would be great.

I reached 4,000, after laboring over it for hours.

The first part of NaNo, for me, is the worst. A lot of people get stuck in the middle or trying to figure out the perfect ending. No, I have trouble getting started.

Yesterday was even worse. We were going to a meal with some friends and a conference afterwards. We got home, and Jake had to get his wordcount done. He didn't finish until late, and I had fallen asleep. I had written 500 words out of the 2000 that I needed to get done.

Today looked up! I finally got my writing down. I started out the day with some Word Wars; I managed to get 2,000 words written in 45 minutes.

This evening I shall return to the grueling effort, but there is hope there now. 

This year is by far my worst year, and my busiest. I doubt there will be any finishing early as before, but I WILL finish.

I will.

Benedict Cumberbatch

You know me, I'm always forgetting. I was supposed to post this two months ago. I saw that Benedict Cumberbatch got engaged, and that reminded me - oh! I have a drawing. :P

I'm reaallly happy with how it turned out. It took forever, though, because of all the dark shadows. And his hair. *groan*

Anyway. Ten hours of work in graphite. Size 9x12 inches. 

On another note I've set up a Redbubble account here. Benedict Cumberbatch is NOT for sale, because I couldn't get the scan to cooperate. The paper was yellower and all the pencil marks are prominent in the picture. Any suggestions?

I only have two things up on Redbubble so far, but I'll soon get more up and also set up a Facebook page! :)

Man o' War

I saw a picture of Man o' War. I was bored. So, I drew it. It only took about thirty minutes, maybe forty-five. :) Black crayon on sketchbook paper.

Audrey

A portrait I did for a friend. :) I'm really happy with how it turned out - her hair especially.

The dress was really hard, especially the elastic on the front. I had already drawn the daisy design on the rest, so I couldn't exactly fill it in black. I had to put the pattern in there. :P It turned out better than I expected it to.

And her nose. I'm notoriously bad at drawing noses, but this one worked out perfectly! It's an odd thing to say, but her nose is one of my favorite parts of the whole drawing. :D

Anyway, it's graphite on 9x12 inch Bristol paper.

Mreow!

Weeping Angel - Don't Blink!

So this was just a quick sketch. Not quite satisfied with the background - the drawing was done on plain sketchbook paper and thus warped. Those white lines? Those are reflections on the drawing, not part of it. :P Oh, well. Next time. 

Jack Russell Terrier

I saw this picture and couldn't not do it. The expression on the puppy's face is the best. ^_^ Not in love with how the body and the paws turned out, but...THE EXPRESSION. <3

Stryder

So this puppy is mine. He's been mine for a few months - I found him running around and of course I had to take him home. I was supposed to give him away, but...he attached to me and is quite the little guard dog. 

Unfortunately he doesn't listen to anyone else in my family. That doesn't help when he gets in trouble and I'm still asleep...

All the same, he's the best. And the cutest.
(And the naughtiest...)

And his name is Stryder. (: 

Black Crayon

They're magical things. Except for when they break...

But really. I love black crayons. I love crayons.

Today I decided I needed to do something. I had this cute picture of a German Shepherd puppy, so of course...

Of course I had to draw it. ;) So I did. It only took a few hours, and it's completely black crayon. I really like the finished product, although the couch is a little rough.