Correction!

Turns out I won 2nd place for my painting Detroit at the Escondido Municipal Gallery!! Show juried by Ric Todd.

Work in progress - ponies

Gallery Opening

Last night I went to the opening reception at the Escondido Municipal Gallery. Their new space is fabulous! The event was lively with wine, a DJ and people actually dancing.
My painting - Detroit: the Devil Within won 3rd place!

Here's my friend Regina Wilson hamming it up with a man who claimed he was a noted art critic. I think he was teasing.....

Work in progress - Gledi

Punching it up!

More work on Gledi

Still working on building up the dark and light values.

Online contest

The Saatchi Gallery invited me to join their online gallery for artists. I couldn't resist! Now I can claim that my work is in the Saatchi!

They have an online contest featuring one of my works here. It's a people's favorite kind of thing. The last winning artwork was not that impressive!

Works in progress

I've been slowly glazing all the subtle little planes of these ponies faces. The yellow lines are a chalk grid I keep applying in an effort to align the paintings as accurately as possible to my reference photos.

Works in progress

Art Show at the Fair

I had two works accepted into the San Diego County Fair. Detroit: the Devil Within won an award ($$)! Marissa- Metamorph is shown here with my real life model all grown up (it has been quite a metamorphosis!). Special bonus was having both kids go with me to the opening as well as Lee.

Ponies

Here's the start of Willow. I can't seem to get my photo of Gledi to upload.

Back in the Studio!

I'm back in the studio!

On Tuesday, I laid my colors out onto my palette. I added the finishing touches to "Joey". I'll live with him for a few more days to make adjustments if needed. I sent Ruth , who requested this portrait, a preview and she loves it!

Donna popped in yesterday and said what I always hear about these paintings (but still love to hear again!): "you've really captured the essence of that dog..."

I also worked on the paintings of the two ponies, mainly blocking in the background and the dark values in the horses.

Camps are a big success!

My efforts at promotion have paid off and all of my camps are full! It's keeping me busy for at least 10 hours a day which is why most of you haven't heard from me. It's also why I'm not painting.... the two ponies I started are being neglected on my easel.

The upside is meeting some amazing young artists. I can't take credit for their talent, but it's rewarding to know I am nurturing it somewhat, providing the stimulus and materials to get them rolling.

Bummer! Bummer! Bummer!

I was so excited to get started on my paintings of the ponies. Today, however, I received my order for canvases and unfortunately they were defective. It really rankles me that Dick Blick would ship these! Admittedly they were on sale, but they are made by Winsor-Newton which I assumed would produce a quality product. One canvas is bowed and the other has a scalloped edge and a big dimple poked into it's canvas.

What else I've been doing...

I have been rather remiss in keeping up this blog. One of my big distractions has been my trying to promote my summer art camps. Several months back I made the decision to raise my rates and then our economy made the decision to plummet. Sign-ups are low so I had to do something. I created a flyer and for the first time have advertised. I like the graphics I designed and used it to update the header for this blog.

New project

Today I did a second photo shoot for my next commission. I LOVE my job! How cool is it to be in an arena while two Icelandic ponies frolic about? They nimbly avoided running me over.

Their owner loves my work, bought my Venus and Califa paintings, loved Detroit and asked me to paint each of her horses. These will be rather large - 24x36" - and will be quite dramatic hanging together.

On a side note: she says that this breed roams freely in Iceland. They are friendly and will let strangers approach and ride them!

Remember these cats? I had left Tabu red for my recent show, but promised the owner I would make him look more like her cat once the show was over. It was difficult doing so since the reference photo she'd provided was rather washed out (and, frankly, I liked Tabu in a raw, RED state!).

Unfortunately, last week, the owner wrote me to tell me that her cat had just passed away. Am I a lagger or what! Anyway, that motivated me and I got him finished. I emailed a copy of the final work to the clients and they replied:

I love it, Susan. It captures his spirit. I can't tell you how glad I am we had you do this. As hard as it is to look at his spunky little face, and as much as we miss him, we will absolutely treasure this portrait. Some things
are just meant to be...

At the library

An amazing array of line and pattern found recently in Ramona became a fun start for this image.

New Commission

It's wonderful when a lead actually materializes from an art show! I will be painting some icelandic ponies for a woman who has collected my work in the past. Here is my mock-up for how they will fit into her office.

Do you ever wonder about dreams?
Recently I saw a door in my dreams and studied it's contrasting colors.
It was green with 4 vivid circles. It seemed an innocuous image but I told my sister about it anyway. We were surprised the next day to see a door in a restaurant with a similar arrangement of 4 circle windows. Now, this image holds much more import for me. I considered painting my front door like it but that would really would look crazy next to the sky blue siding. Or would it? For now, here is the digital version:

3/23/10

New diversion!

I found a magazine (Photoshop Creative) that is full of useful tutorials and even comes with a cd full of great brushes, patterns, etc. It's amazing what one can do with a little instruction! It also helps to have some photos of gorgeous girls to work with.

Now I'm wanting to upgrade to CS3... finding Elements is a bit limiting.

Art Show reception

We finally got around to posing for some photos after our show. That's Dianne on the right. Me and Tupac below.

A few images from PCPA Show

Cat again

I've changed a few things.... this always happens until something sells.

Background

Changed the background and REALLY like it today - but WILL I tomorrow?

Almost done!

Bette Davis

I've been trying to finish Detroit. Didn't have my camera at my studio today so no pics. I made headway on the white boxer. I brought it home and scanned it so here she is. She's been making me nuts with her freaky gums!

This one I started a while back, working from a photo Marissa set up and had me take of her. I came up with the creepy composition. It's always saddened me and I never finished it....'til now.

Back to Detroit...

.....the cat, that is. I'm debating about all the leftover red. What do you think??

And then there's Lucy....

Almost finished with her complicated mess of a face!

Done (for now!)

More fur!

I'm posting my work in progress to document what I do. People are always asking me about my technique. I never can quite verbalize it. These WOP's may illustrate the steps I take as I develop a painting.

Slowly building it up

New year, new painting

Thanks for the positive feedback... I've moved on to a much larger canvas and have (finally!) started painting Marissa's crazy cat, Detroit. I posted a pencil sketch here back in November. It's much more satisfying working big (40"x30") but it takes soooo much longer!

Where did December go???!!?

With the holidays, family gatherings and a brief trip to Vegas, December has really been a blur.

Started this second cat, commissioned to go with the previous painting. I'm tempted to keep it at this level - love the red!