Hey all!  Just taking a little break to write an update.  I've been wrestling with financial stuff so that I can file my taxes and boy, has it been a struggle!  I'm having to learn a lot about it, with this being my first year to file taxes for my business.  But I believe that challenges and learning new things are good for us, they make our noggins work and keep them sharp.  :)

I realized the last time I posted an update that most of my posts lately have been about already finished items and not much - especially pictures - of works in progress.  Well, if there's one thing I am not lacking in, it's works in progress!  At last count, I had over ten canvases in various states of progress.  But there's one in particular that is very exciting to me right now, so I wanted to post a little about it.

After half a year, I'm finally delving back into painting with oils.  In addition to acrylics, of course.  Oils just seem to come more naturally to me, much more so than acrylics.  And coming back to them is like seeing my best friend again after a while apart.  We're getting reacquainted but the magic is still there. It's also been about the same time since I've painted a portrait with oils.  Portraits are one of my favorite things to create and I've really missed it.

A few weeks ago, some of my family came over for brunch.  My five year old niece and I were sitting at the dining room table drawing.  She's quite the little artist and we can draw for hours together.  I started a sketch of a woman's profile with very stylized, flowing hair.  I had her with her arms out in front of her, but it just didn't feel quite right, so I set her aside.  I needed a little moodling time to figure out how she should look.

Earlier this week, my brain finally came up with the final version.  I changed the sketch around and finally, at the stroke of midnight, I figured out what the last little piece of the drawing should look like and what additional changes need to be made or added.  Once I finished, I scanned the image.  The sketch itself is 8x10, but when I picked out the canvas, I went for an 18x24.  It's been a while since I've worked on a surface this big and I'm excited!

I uploaded the image to www.blockposters.com, where they will take your image and enlarge it, then create a pdf file of it.  Then you can print it out on multiple pages and tape the pages together to create a large poster.  I didn't want to freehand this drawing on the canvas, so I will be transferring it using this poster.  In preparation, I did an underpainting of sap green oil paint on the canvas.  It is now ready for me to transfer the image onto the canvas and complete the underpainting.  Here's a picture of it so far:

I am SO EXCITED about working on this piece!  When I stumbled across this bird, I just knew he would be perfect for the image and I love how he's just perched on her hand, checking her out.  I've mapped out the colors and am planning it all out in my mind.  I will start painting it this week and will be sure to keep you all update on the progress!

Oh, and by the way, I'm very excited to announce that I am now offering a print of my Rainy Day Owl in my Art Fire shop!  I have more copies on the way, plus an additional print of Purple and Blue Flower that I will be listing soon. 

Okay, enough for tonight.  I hope that all of you are doing well and I look forward to writing again soon with pictures of my latest and newest creations!

Thanks for reading my blog and welcome to the new followers!

Julie

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I will be listing this adorable little owl tomorrow morning!  She'll be available for purchase in my Etsy shop at http://quirkydame.etsy.com.  I will be doing another Valentine Owl for my Art Fire shop this week, so stay tuned!

First piece of good news?   I just placed an order for a sample print for three of my paintings!  I'm nervous, but eager to see how they turn out.  If they turn out well, I will be listing them in both my Art Fire and Etsy shops then ordering more.  If they don't, I'll continue to fiddle around until I get some awesome prints that are sell-worthy.  :)

In other good news, I've listed two new paintings this weekend!  The first one is called Night Owl and he's done on the mini 2.5"x3.5" canvas and comes with the 5" easel shown in the picture.  He's available at http://quirkydame.artfire.com:

Hello all!  I hope everyone had a wonderful new year.  Mine has been quite productive so far.  Over the holiday weekend, I started excavating and organizing my studio, gessoed two wood panels for new owl paintings, finished two new paintings and worked up sketches for two future paintings! 

Instead of making resolutions, the past three years I've chosen a word of the year.  It's worked much better than resolutions ever did.  It's amazing when you look back at the end of the year and realize just how much that word affected the year.  This year the word I felt called to choose was "Expand."  And I'm already expanding!  I'm looking into prints and may get samples done soon.  This is something I've wanted to do for quite some time.  So I'm busy educating myself about this subject and hope that prints will be available later in the year!

I also opened up a new store - in addition to my ArtFire store - that will feature my paintings only.  I will still list some paintings on ArtFire, along with the note cards, etc.  But I'm exciting to branch out and to have my artwork available at http://jb.boundlessgallery.com/.  Right now I have three paintings there.  Two of them are the new ones I created this weekend.  Here's a sneak peek at them:

Due to the holidays, I haven't been blogging much.  I do plan on doing a new entry complete with photos soon!  I have new items I've listed and a custom order I'm dying to talk about.  But I can't until the customer gets it early next month, as she wanted part of it to be a surprise.  She reads this blog, so I don't want to ruin it for her!

But I also wanted to let everyone know that I have set up a fan page on Facebook.  If you'd like to stay updated with all the latest news, promotions and new items listed to Quirky Dame Designs, you can become a fan at http://www.facebook.com/quirkydamedesigns!  I'll be doing a drawing for some free note cards to start the New Year in a good way!

Before I sign off, I'd like to wish everyone a spectacular, blessing-filled New Year!  Much happiness to you all!  :)

Like many others, I've been crazy busy the past couple of weeks.  Adding to that this year was my decision to create a piece of art for certain people as their presents.  As I've written recently, my best friend and I started doing this last year.  So I finished two pieces for her.  Plus my parents, now retired, have declared that we (my sisters and I) are not to give them presents anymore, exceptions being things we make or bake, etc.  Well, I did get away with giving them a digital photo frame as an early gift (and it was a hit!) but I wanted to make them something special.

My father had requested a couple of months ago that I do a drawing for him to hang at his cabin.  My father feeds all manner of critters at his cabin, but most special to him is his squirrel that we named Spike.  There have been a number of Spike's through the years (we name them all that) but there was one in particular that really stood out.  When Spike would hear my father drive down the driveway, he would run to greet him.  When my father would call his name, the squirrel would come running.  He'd even climb up onto his knee or shoulder to be fed.  So when it came time to decide what to draw, it was pretty simple.  :)  Here's the final piece, a composite of two photos I took this summer:

I also reworked a painting based on a photo I took in Hawaii.  I'm giving that one to my mother.  I have a similar one that was part of a commission I did for a condo in Hawaii.  This one is meant to just be a soothing, peaceful painting with all the blues of the ocean.  The lighting on this one isn't the greatest, but I'll post a picture anyway.  It's really hard to get a good photo of this one:


Since my last post, I also added a few more mini paintings with easels to my shop.  I'm having a blast doing these and am currently working on a custom order for someone that involves two of these.  So much fun.  Here's a few pictures of the ones I've listed:

So, I had thought I would work a little more on the cat on the woman's head painting.  And I will this weekend.  I"ll be house-sitting which will leave me with lots of free time.  I'm hoping to finish it and list it in my shop by Monday.  *fingers crossed*  But I didn't work on it tonight.

I went to Target with my mother.  And at Target I ended up getting six little mini spray bottles.  They are much larger than the previous ones I had been using, which were only 1 ounce.  I use these bottles to spray backgrounds for some of my paintings.  For instance, the background on the (now completed) paintings for my best friend were done by painting the background burnt orange and then spraying various shades of that orange and gold on it.  Here's a few pictures of the completed paintings: