New bird art. Rooster.

I am beginning a new oil painting, this time a rooster. Here's the beginning pencil sketch and he's looking very dapper! Feathers in oil paint will be a fun experiment, after all that colored pencil work.

Taxes and roosters

Been working on taxes for what seems like forever! I'll be glad to be done. I'll be working on a rooster this week. Keep an eye out!

sheep face stage 6 and 7

sheep face number one

So today I mixed up some fresh medium and painted several coats on this fine sheep. I have lots of whites to add to the dark fur around the ruff, and then a few more layers of glazes, kind of golden/purple/green/ecru, so don't faint when you see the darkness! I recently bought some new small # 1 and two brushes and they'll do a good job added those curly sheep fur! Here are five stages.

5 Sheep

After I penciled in the five sheep on the gessoed boards, I added one color and lots of medium. I ended up with these three, looking very orangey/gray. I had to wait for this coat to dry and today I started adding more ayers. I'll post those next.

Some warm weather, finally

It was 70 degrees on Friday, and only 46 today. That's New England for you! It was great to see the snow in my front yard melting away from my garden and seeing some small tulip and daffodil sprouts popping their heads up in the garden. My husband bought new posts for the mailboxes and returned them to their rightful places. I also noticed that my garden is smaller than I thought, once the snow melted away. Time to enlarge again! My friend went with me to a nursery I had never been to and I had a blast. Once of the things I noticed was all the "birds" products they carry, and so of course I left them a few card samples for the owner. They had some canaries, a parrot and a pair of doves in the gift shop area, and it they were singing and cooing up a storm. Makes me want some canaries!!!

The name of the place is Churchills and it's in Exeter, NH. Stop in if you are ever in the area. I can hardly wait until the weather stabilizes, to go back and buy some more flowers. I bought some pansies and a Venus Fly Trap plant for my granddaughter who really wants one! Found out you really shouldn't feed them hamburger!!! Spring has begun to slowly creep over my town and I couldn't e happier!

I painted some more on my sheep but haven't downloaded the image yet. I'll try to post it tomorrow! Happy Saturday!

A new shop

I will be selling my work in a new shop, Diddies & Doodads at 57 Pleasant Steet in Epping, NH. Psyched! Lovely shop in an old remodeled barn. Stop in if you're in the neighborhood!

Also finished my pig painting and put it for sale in my Etsy shop. I'll be making prints also. This weekend the sheep paintings begin! Wish me luck! That's a lot of wool!

Full sheep pencil sketch

Here's the second sheep. Something's not quite right with his face but I'll fix it as I paint. I'm fussy like that!

Sheep face

I'm going to do a triptych of sheep, and I have 2 of the pencil sketches done. Still need to draw the third one which will have 3 sheep in it. I figure I'll work on all three at the same time to save on remixing paint. Here's the first one.

stage one piggy pencil sketch on gesso

This little piggy went to market! Not really. Here's the pencil sketch I started with to begin my pig painting. I have some masonite all covered with 3 or 4 coats of gesso, just aching for some paint! I got tired of colored pencils for a while and thought I'd do some more oil painting. I most always start with pencil. I took this photo with my phone so it's not so great!

stage 2 piggy

This has some undercoat of oil which is what I usually do before going in with any detail. It lays down a tone on the gesso. I'm not sure everyone does this quite like me!

stage 3 piggy

This stage has a good coat of oil paint, but I need to let it dry before I go back in with details.