Finally finished this charcoal portrait of one of my grandaughters

I've started teaching charcoal drawing classes and with that, I have rediscovered how wonderful they are! I did a Corgi a while back and then it was no stopping me! I like toned paper as it gives me a third color to use within the piece. If you haven't started using charcoal, have a try. They can be messy on your finders, but you can just erase your fingers with your kneaded eraser!

Illustration Friday's theme is "revenge". this is my submission

This was drawn in pen and ink and colored pencil. Enjoy!

New classes

I'll be holding 2 new art classes at Seacoast Artist Association in Exeter, NH starting October 29th. One is Learn to Draw and the other is Colored Pencil. Each class runs for 2 hours and is 8 weeks long. If you are interested, shoot me an email and I will send you a flyer!

Elephants in graphite and charcoal

version 1

version 2

I've been fooling around in graphite and charcoal for a month or so and started this portrait of two elephants. It's going slow, slower than I thought. Their skin is so complex! I started with pencil and now I'm adding charcoal to get the tone right. Lots of blending with a stump as I go along, and removing highlights with a kneaded eraser. I'll keep posting as I go along.

version 3

iPad sketching. Illustration Friday theme: Surveillance

Each time I pick up my iPad to do some sketching, I have a different experience. This is a really good thing! So much to play around with i8n only one app so far. I can imagine the fun when I download more apps. This one was done all on one layer with one brush. Done in Sketch Clup with stylus

Illustration Friday post, theme "Liquid"

I don't know about you, but coffee is the most precious "liquid" in my life!!! I've created an entire line of these funny ladies all drinking coffee!

Drawn with pen and colored pencil. See all of my lady cards here on one of my other blogs: http://revelle-taillon.blogspot.com/

Illustration Friday theme: WILD

This is an oil painting I did for my granddaughter's bedroom. so much fun!

Illustration Friday theme is "water"

Here's my submission!

Illustration Friday's theme : ocean

My entry is a Ross's Gull. The Ross's Gull was first spotted in the United States in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1975 and was such a big deal to local bird watchers, that the camera crews from the Boston news stations were called out. Previously it was thought to only live in the Arctic.

I drew him in colored pencil. It was very challenging to create all the grays' in his feathers, but it was fun!

Illustration Friday entry for "Imagination"

Step 5

I get leery of all that brown in the background and wonder if I will ever be able to fill it with grass, so I squeezed out some yellow, black and several greens and blues and go to town. Some people don't realize that a nice lemon yellow and black makes a beautiful set of greens. Mix yellows and blues and you get many many more. I also include some blues and blacks in the grass to indicate shadows behind the grass. It's far from being done, but that brown is not a solid block any more. All of her wrinkles on her forehead and nose are also blown out to white in my reference photo because it was taken in the bright sunshine. So I have to try and create what they really look like. Lots of back and forth on these! Then I realized she had a spot of brown on the top of her head from another photo. Might as well indicate that too! Added some more dark blue pink grays inside her mouth.

Step 4

She's started to loo a bit like a bulldog! Yeah! Next I have some fun, adding the eyes. Here's are a black blur in the photo, so I used several photos of English Bulldogs' eyes for reference. I love to add a lot of color into the eyes to draw the viewer to them. Her eyes ended up with some brown, blue, green, purple, black and white. In various amounts! Also added some green to her nose. Green? Why? It's the opposite of orange (sienna) on the color scale, so it adds a nice contrast when you paint over it with more layers of thinned paint. Also darkened up the tongue. Adding blue to the alizarin crimson makes that peculiar color that dogs' noses have and the tongues also have. Added some purple in there in the mix. I also started to add more dark browns to the shadow areas of her coat.

Boston Terrier 2

Now I have fixed the crooked eye, don't know if you can tell, and I might go back into it later. I started to add more color. I've used a soft blue gray and several other grays. Also added two different pinks to certain areas. Now I'm adding indigo blue where all the black are. I like to build up my blacks with dark blues and browns and dark reds if I can. The colors all shine through when you look at it closely and it makes a rich black.. I've also started to define all the edges of the face and neck. This is so much fun!

Boston Terrier colored pencil drawing

I've been wanting to draw some Boston Terriers for a long time and finally sat down to start one. This is the beginning. It's about 12 x 14 on Canson Drawing paper. Started with a pencil sketch and then added some white after I erased the pencil under those parts. Then I started the eyes and then went to the nose. I added some white, light grey and a light powder gray blue to the nose (can't think of the name of the color!). I think the left eye is off a bit, so I'll probably have to erase it a tiny bit and re-work it. You all know how I hate to erase!!! Where is that durn eraser! The paper is a bit less orange than the scan. Maybe work more on it this weekend. It is Mother's Day so I should be able to do whatever I want, right? 

Chimpanzee

I painted a cute Chimpanzee for my granddaughter for her third birthday. It's in acrylics, 12 x 16. It's to go with several others that I have painted for her through the past couple years, and the border designs all match her wallpaper. Enjoy!

My Colored Pencil Tips blog

Hi, just want to remind everyone that I have another blog called "Colored Pencil Tips" where I am posting answers to some of the questions people ask me about drawing with colored pencils specifically. I try to post there at least once a week. Check it out here: http://coloredpenciltips.blogspot.com/

New show

I'll be dropping off art for a new show at Exeter Hospital in Exeter, NH in a couple weeks. It will run through the end of May, 2012. Check it out if you live in the area. I'll have mostly colored pencil art, and some oil paintings.

Finally finished my trees.

I am finally finished with this colored pencil painting of trees. I had so much fun that I a definitely going to do more. Wish me luck! I can picture all kinds of trees and roots in my imagination! If you are interested, you can purchase a print of it in my Etsy shop.

Artist Drawing Materials Workshop

Artist Drawing Media Workshops
at Seacoast Artists Association
225 Water Street, Exeter, NH 03833
(603) 778-8856  •  www.seacoastartist.org

Have you wanted to try out different drawing media before you decide to purchase them? Have you hesitated because you weren’t sure you would like it? Here is the perfect opportunity to get your hands on some of the finest artists materials and supports (drawing surfaces) and get your hands dirty before you commit to what you’d like to try out next.

We’ll explore these mediums: Drawing pencils: 8H to 8B, Coptic markers, Staedtler Pigment liner pens, Crowquill pen, Noodlers fountain pen, conte crayons, charcoal: hard, vine & white compressed, oil pastels, hard & soft pastels, colored pencil, Aquaflow brushes for coloring waterproof ink sketches

And these supports: Strathmore Bristol Board (vellum & plate), Canson Mi-Teintes Drawing Papers in various colors, Rising Museum Board (100% cotton), Strathmore Charcoal paper in various colors (100% cotton fiber), Stonehenge Paper (100% cotton fiber). Golden Acrylic Pumice Gel & Golden Acrylic Molding Paste, both used to create a textured surface for pastels, charcoal and conte crayon.

WORKSHOP DATES: Workshop will be held on two different dates: Tuesday, March 6th and April 3rd, 2012, 12:30 to 3:30 pm. Cost is $50.00 plus a $10.00 materials fee for each workshop.
10% of the tuition goes to the Seacoast Artist Association Scholarship Fund.

For more information and to hold a spot: email Revelle at rtaillon@comcast.net.

More Valentine's Day artwork

I created this small piece for my husband for our 12th Anniversary, which is Valentine's Day. Each year I make him some "heart" based artwork, a different medium each year. So this year, I'm doing 12 hearts as a mobile. Hope I can get it to balance! If anyone has any tips to make that happen, let me know. I'm thinking of using driftwood for the top, and fishing line to connect the pieces. This is on mat board, gessoed and stamped with acrylics, then I drilled holes into it to attached an antique pull and a couple dice turned to 12!