Comissions

I have been working on two comissions in the past weeks and am finally on the home stretch. It has been a nice change of pace. Working with pen and ink is very similar to creating my etchings, so it always makes me feel good about what I am doing.

The first commission was a portrait of a dog for a friend of mine. His old spaniel had just passed away and he wanted to remember her. The portrait has two views of Mattie and the milky way in the distance. I also framed the print with a black frame and double mat. When working on portraits, I normally work from photos. For multiple animals, I normally play around with photoshop to get a nice composition before I start drawing. The second step is to get the basic values down with pencil, and third I just fill it in with the pen. I use a simple old school pen (like a quill) with liquid ink in a well.

The other commission is on a totally different note. It is an illustration for a young writer for his fantasy novels. I have so excited to work with him. The finished illustrations will be sold as prints with the short story at the Shiny Squirrel Boutique. I'll post more on this as soon as I finish the illustration. Garr, it has been such a busy semester! There are so many things to do and every week when I think I have cleared enough time, a bunch more things pop up! Is this the way every one else's life is too? I have so many patterns that I am dying to try out, but simply have no time.

I blogged about our move previously (husband-military-all that jazz). That also changed, so that instead of moving next summer to Germany, we are already leaving in Jan-Feb next year to Ft Lewis, Washinton. As soon as the semester and teaching are over, I get to start packing boxes. I think I might have to have a sale to get rid of some of the fabrics I have accumulated...

Inspired by Nature

I had someone comment on our bedroom wall mural before, so I decided to post more proper pictures of it here. On the left you can see the corner of the bedroom. It is painted 1yd high with a darker green and the rest of the room with a light greenblue. I used the left over darker green and some brown paint to paint a tree and other nature subjects on the walls to make it look like we were sleepig in a forest. The chair is from a yard sale, and the rest of the furniture is from Ikea's Malm series.

The way I got the basic designs of the trees on the walls, was with a small projector and pencil. The rest of it was more or less improvised. The trees also continue in the other corners of the room. In the picture on the right is a simple mural of a bird in a tree, from the opposite wall in the bedroom. I also sketched that on the wall first with a projector and pencil, and then just painted the lines in. It was originally a photo I found online. I just traced the outline silhouette.

The boring foyer also got a mural. I had seen a similar corner painting in an old magazine years ago, and had been dying to paint one of my own in my first house. When we moved in, I picked the entry way, and just doubled the tree on both sides of the door. The painting makes the entry much more cozy to come in now.

Todays inspiration...

I wanted to introduce two awesome artists in my entry today. Both of them are artists from Europe, Sanna Annukka, Finnish/English and Angie Lewin from the UK. If you haven't been able to discern yet, I like things that have a retro 70's or so look to them. I fell in love with the prints of both of these artists immediately.

Sanna Annukka is an illustrator and printmaker. She finds her inpiration from nature and folklore. She uses bright colors and geometric simplified designs in her work. Her screenprints and lithographs are available from her online store. In addition to graphic design, Sanna Annukka is collaborating with design companies, like Marimekko, for graphics for fabrics.

Angie Levin is also a printmaker working with linocuts, wood engraving and collage. Her colors a more muted compard to Sanna Annukka, but just as delicious. Many of her prints feature simplified and designy flowers and meadows in greens and blues.

I wish I had a collection of both of these artists prints. You can buy her prints straight from her website or from art galleries listed on the site as well. Fabrics designed by Angie can be found at St.Judes.

New Livingroom

Whew, I just got back from a 2 1/2 week vacation from visiting family in Finland (my parents farm on the left). I had a great time! For the first week we took some time to fix up our summer house. We put up new wallpaper and paneling, and new laminate floors over the old yellow wood floors. I wanted to paint them, but my mother insisted with the laminate... Go figure. I hope that next summer I can paint the yellow wood floors in the foyer gray. Talking about painted wood floors, I came upon two cute things on the web today. one of them is this cute floor decal, called Tango. What a whimsical way to brighten up a room. I think I could also paint something similar. The white painted floors in the other picture look so lovely and crisp. I would love to get this feel at our summer house as well. The rest of Yvestown's photo's are worth taking a look as well. Back to the summer house- after new walls and floors were put in we shopped around for some fabric for drapes and sofa cushins to liven up the space. We got a steal with this happy yellow-red-green stripe fabrick being 70% off! Sewing drapes and pillows was a nice little vacation project. We hung up some white shelves from ikea (you can barely see it on the bottom right picture, but they are there). My mother put up some of the antique items on the shelves and we hung up some old pictures to give some character. I think it all turned out very nice, bright and summery. A nice change from the dingy old place.