A Family Portrait Commission

A Family Portrait Commission (conte pencil and pastel pencil on paper, 24x36 inches)

I know I haven't posted in a while. December was my annual Christmas craft show at my local mall, which I've been doing wherever I happen to live, every year since 1988. It's kinda hard to give up! The bulk of my business is detailed pencil portraits like this one (only usually smaller, with one or two or three faces.) This client wanted one "as big as you can make it, Rita!" So I hunted down my full sheets of the paper I ordered in bulk years ago, and turns out it was 26x40! Wow! I was able to draw these faces just about life size. Fitting in the drawing time between the other, smaller, faster orders, it look me nearly the entire craft show to complete.

Now that Christmas is over (and I've had my few short days of 'rest') I can start posting some of this year's results.

Here are a few shots of my progress on this huge portrait. It barely fit on my easel! In order to hang my iPad nearby, and rest my hand to the right, I had to cover the immediate areas with paper to protect what I had already done.

Got Milk? (revised)

"Got Milk?"  (pastel, 12x24 inches)  $975

Available at the Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery in Del Rio TX, through mid January, 2015.

Invited as the Featured Artist for the Del Rio First Friday Art Walk, I had a great weekend taking a load of paintings to the gallery owned by Pam Bunch, a wonderful lady and an excellent artist, especially with watercolors! She graciously hosted me in her home for two nights, and organized a beautiful reception Friday evening.

During the day on Friday, I made some long-over-due revisions to one of my favorite paintings from last year, "Got Milk?" The horrid bright green grasses in the background had always bugged me, so I wiped off that part and made up a new background with some depth, and I used several colors I already saw in the painting to improve the color harmony.

(Here's the old version:)

A couple shots of my 'corner' of the gallery, right as one walks in!

The December first friday in Del Rio is also the Christmas Parade, which goes right past the gallery windows -- a prime spectator spot!

Later, the two young Misses, Miss Del Rio Texas and Miss Del Rio Texas Teen stopped by the reception with their families to see the artwork! (I took advantage of the photo op!)

November 31-in-30!

Well, I didn't do my original 60-in-30 personal challenge (see my Nov. 1 post) but I did have a painting to post every day of November, and even with using two posts to brag about older paintings getting published, I still created 31 works of art in November. Two of them were portrait commissions, which I couldn't post the actual works yet, but instead posted older portraits. And that left 3 extra 'dailies' which I posted in the first days of December!

This poster is late because I was out in Del Rio TX over the weekend to show my work during the First Friday Art Walk at the Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery (Her site will be updated soon!) A large selection of my work will stay there through most of January 2015.

Tomorrow I will try to post pics from the weekend, it was a fun time!

(btw: the poster collage above was created on picmonkey.com.)

Munster

"Munster" (Pastel, 7x5 inches) click here to bid

This one might be my last 'daily' painting for a while. The craft show starts next week where I'll be exclusively working on commissioned portrait drawings and portrait sketches, from life or photos, (at Rolling Oaks Mall, San Antonio TX, Dec 9-24.)

This weekend I'll be taking some paintings out to Del Rio TX, for the First Friday Art Walk, and my work will remain at the Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery, 100 W. Greenwood in Del Rio through the month of December, and possibly January too! I'll get some photos during the Art Walk so I can post them later.

Meanwhile here are the few progress shots of Munster I managed to get:

Espresso

"Espresso"  (pastel, 7x5 inches)  click here to bid

After more than 400 miniature paintings of ranch animals, probably several dozen black ones, I don't know how I still come up with fitting names. But somehow I manage! Thank you Google search and Thesaurus.com! Lol.

Guava

"Guava"  (pastel, 7x5 inches)  click here to bid

I had fun with his colors!