Hawk WIP 2

I've been doing portrait work for the holidays and since that stuff can't be shared until after gifts are given, I thought I'd share a photo of the hawk. I haven't had a chance to work on him a lot but I did make a little bit of progress on the background and his head. Notice the big splotch of paint above his left leg where it seems I was doing a bit of sponge painting with my sleeve—oops! There's lot left to do yet but here he is!

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A Step Towards Clay!

My six year old niece came to visit last week, she loves art so I picked up some Sculpey for us to play with. We had a great time sitting outside in the sun sculpting! Here's my butterfly which I have yet to paint. This is one of the items I've been wanting to do in clay to hang on the wall. I'm glad I remembered to dig a nail hole in it at the last minute!

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Buzza Buzza Buzza Buzza

Here is another digital illustration which I had a lot of fun with. I started with a pencil sketch of the bee then once I redrew him in Illustrator I created the rest of the scenery, then I recreated it, then recreated it again, and again, and here it is. I decided on flowers, you can't have a bee without flowers and what better color flowers than purple! A hive, every bee needs a home. Additional bees because a bee needs his friends! And sun, ahhhhh sun! As it's getting cooler out nothing sounds better than finding a warm spot in the sun!

Buzza Buzza Buzza Buzza!
Print Available on Etsy

I also reworked the background of the cat illustrations and added an orange kitty to the mix.

Black Cat
Print Available on Etsy

White Cat
Print Available on Etsy

Orange Cat
Print Available on Etsy

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Alice in Wonderland

A few years back when I was working as a Graphic Designer in Colorado, our department took a trip to Pier 1 Imports to find items to decorate our drab cubicles. I came back with this fantastically fun flower vase which reminds me of Alice in Wonderland and is still one of my favorite things. I snapped this photo when I was washing it in the sink Monday.

Cleaning Day—Alice in Wonderland Vase

Here are some other photos which I've taken recently. I do particularly love capturing cardinals, males in particular with their vibrant red coloring.

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White Horse WIP

The last of the under-paintings which I started this week is this white horse. I had hoped to get another horse started as well but I have company coming and I've run out of time. Here's a very poor photo taken in low-light with my phone.

I planted some lettuce in containers on the deck a few weeks back and something kept digging in the pots. I finally decided to move them up to the area directly outside the french doors in the family room where I was hoping the dogs would keep the animals at bay. Well...not so much...

Brave little guy getting a drink with a foot in one of the pots of lettuce sprouts.
The dogs were completely unaware on the other side of the window. Hmmmm...

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Hawk WIP

Yesterday morning while i was peacefully eating my breakfast and getting ready to start my day there was a big BOOM and the street went dark! With the computer out and no way to work I had a cleaning day! All of the normal cleaning was done so it was time for the nooks and crannies, those things you don't always do like baseboards, windows, etc. I made a list and started marking things off, at the bottom of my list, I had "PAINT"!

Here are some photos of the first two stages of a hawk I'm painting. A couple weeks ago I stumbled across a photo I'd taken of this guy and knew I just had to paint him! I had hoped to work on him some more yesterday but as luck would have it the power came back on right as I was about to head for the easel.

Hawk WIP—Sketch

Hawk WIP—Underpainting

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Baby Girl Underpainting

Here is the first of a few under-paintings which I did over the past few days and are drying right now.

This sweet little girl is calling me, I can't wait for the underpainting to dry so I can work on her some more! In the meantime I have three more masonite panels to gesso so I can get my other ideas sketched out and started.

I'm planning on going to Dick Blick to pick up some clay later this week. I have had the urge to dig my hands into clay lately and I have a few ideas I'd like to try out! I wasn't sure about it at first as I don't have, or know anyone else who does have, a kiln. I thought about going the Sculpey route but clay is so much less expensive that it just doesn't make sense to get Sculpey unless I was only doing one or two small items. It turns out that there are places around which allow you to rent a shelf of a kiln so that's what I'm going to do! Crossing my fingers that I can remember enough about clay from high school and college that my items don't explode!

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Exciting Stuff!

This month's Alpha Arts Guild meeting was last night and I learned a lot! Phil Garrett came to speak to us, he is one of Golden's working artists. Phil spoke about the variety of Golden products and what you can do with them and I was amazed! I didn't have any the number of the products they make and the variety of fun things you can do with them. I used to use acrylics but I've been painting primarily with oils for the past several years, after last night I am tempted to try acrylics again!

Here are some of things which I heard about last night!

• A virtual paint mixer! Golden has this available on their web site! 
• Molding paste. What can I say? He past a pile of it around to play with and it just made me smile! 

Molding Paste

• Digital Grounds! You can coat a surface with this and so long as it's thin enough to run through an inkjet printer you can print right on a wide variety of things including aluminum foil and acrylic skins.
• Acrylic or gel skins! By painting on surfaces which the paint wont adhere to you can create skins which will peel up once dry. Once they are peeled off the surface they were painted on you can print on them using digital grounds, use them in paintings, as window decals, for a surface to transfer onto, etc. Incredible!

Acrylic/Gel Skins

• My personal favorite discovery of last night was when he pulled out the Princeton Catalyst Blades and Wedges! My heart skipped a beat! I must get some of these! I may never use a brush or palette knife again!

Princeton Catalyst Blade

Princeton Catalyst Wedge

On a different note, my seasonal painting is beginning. Once spring hits I tend to put my paint brushes down and get outside. This summer I ran my first 5k (YAY!) and did three organized bike rides a 20 mile, 23 mile, and 43 mile ride. This last one (the 43 mile) was the most challenging and the most rewarding as it was the Young Survival Coalition's (YSC) Tour de Pink Atlanta, a ride for breast cancer. Now that the rides are over and the temperature has dropped I find myself itching to paint. I have one painting on the easel and one board gessoed and sketched out, and two blank gessoed boards with ideas ready and waiting to go! I'm hoping to have something to show here in the next week or two.

YSC Mini Cooper - some very lucky person won this!

Team Bendt Design Polo Shirts for the Tour de Pink!
Bendt Design is my graphic design business, I had these perfectly purple shirts done up for the ride!

I've also added another digital illustration to my etsy shop! Well, it's the same one as in my last post accept with a black cat. I'm also hoping to have more of those up soon!

Black Cat
5x5 print in 8x8 frame
Click here for the Etsy listing

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Cat Illustration

Recently I've been sketching some cute animal characters. I decided to scan them in and turn them into digital illustrations. Here is the first one of a sweet white cat with a pink flower and a colorful butterfly.

I'm excited to have added a print of this little guy to my shop over on etsy!

White Cat
5x5 print in 8x8 frame
https://www.etsy.com/listing/111321908/white-cat-with-flower-and-butterfly-5x5

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