Aseel done!!!

"Proud Heritage" (Spangled Aseel)
14 by 16 inches
colored pencil and graphite on tan Stonehenge paper
$2240, unframed, not including tax or shipping
will ship worldwide
limited edition prints will be available within the next month, price to be determined

This WILL need to be professionally photographed/scanned, but this pic from my camera is decent.

March 7 work in progress

This is pretty much done, other than maybe tweaking a few things (I have to just let it sit for a while, and look at it, and think about it). The lighting was tough, because although there are lights behind the bird I've tried to convey that he is more strongly lit from this side.

I will try to take a GOOD photo tomorrow in daylight, since I can't do that too well in here in the dark. I doubt I'll be able to scan it myself. I'd have to scan it in four parts and I'm hesitant to subject it to that. I will be getting it professionally photographed next week, so I may have to wait til I get the transparency back... but I'll try tomorrow, should be able to at least get a good-enough-for-website pic!

March 6 work in progress

It's not done but it's getting close!

March 5 work in progress

I hate that it's been over a week since I was able to work on this! WAY off schedule now, crap!

Not done yet....

I seem to be able to reduce the glare problem by photographing it on the easel, so I'll start doing that now I guess.


working title: something to do with "Heritage" I need to use that word I think. This is already generating some mixed responses due to the context. I knew it would. Ideas? "Undeniable Heritage"??
colored pencil and graphite on tan paper
14x16 inches (image size)
$2240 if purchased before I finish (may go up on completion)

chicken necklace

The Fresno show had a contest for best jewelry made from chicken (or fowl) parts (feathers, spurs, etc). So I decided to make the most beautiful necklace I could come up with. I used spurs, and tail covert feathers from Black, BBRed, and Cuckoo Rosecombs (and glass beads, chain, etc).


These are all the entries. The three on the right were made by Brian Decker. The middle one of course is mine, and unfortunately I don't know who made the other items. If anyone knows, please leave names in the comments section.

boys will be boys

I *finally* unpacked the camera today, can you believe I hadn't even unpacked it since the Fresno show? Yeesh. Two of my favorite pics from the show:

studio, oh!

To say that the last week and a half or so has been busy would be the understatement of the year. It's been nuts, but unfortunately not with creating artwork. This week is slightly better, but not much. Thankfully I did get some drawing time today.

The good news is the studio is re-assembled, and different, and better (and the whole room is painted and re-arranged). The drafting table and chair are in the same place. I cleaned and organized all the supply drawers. ALL pencils are now stored in the wooden drawers to the left of the table (rather than on the table itself, which worked for small stuff but had gotten inconvenient). I bought an easel. I haven't painted yet but I like it already, and it's very compact (A.R. this takes up only 2x2 feet of floor space, just fyi!). I moved a bookcase in here so all my horse/bird/art reference books are right there, and I finished the shelves that had been in the barn. The odd looking canvas covered box-like thing is the set of shelves. I don't know who made it but I inherited it and finished it and now I can store paper and artwork up to 29x33 inches. A cheap version of flat files, and the canvas just keeps the dust out (and gives the cats something to play under apparently).


Here's how it looks at night, my favorite art time:

Oh, and I know someone will wonder, so YES, when I paint there will be a dropcloth on the floor! :-) And NO I don't do drawings on the easel, the Aseel drawing just happens to be sitting there since I was looking at it and thinking about what to do.

just checking in...

Yeah, I'm still around. It's just one of those totally insane weeks. For some silly reason I agreed to host a poultry show meeting this coming weekend. Those are enough work normally, and in the midst of the wall-painting and room-rearranging adventure it's chaos. Gotta paint the last wall tomorrow and then I MUST get the furniture out of the middle of the room! I'd scooted the art table back into place last week so I could do some drawing, but nothing else is put away other than what I was working on today. I have not had time to work on the Aseel drawing at all since Thursday, just been too darn busy. I did take it with me to the show last weekend though and showed a few people and it went over well. I've found someone who prints giclees, so I'm gonna go for it when this is done.

I went to Utrecht Art today and bought a really nice easel so that I can be set up permanently for painting, and I'm totally rearranging the furniture in here, both studio and otherwise (my studio is in part of the front room of the house, along with the computer, a piano, couch, dining room, etc. It's nothing grand). Moving the piano is a challenge, dang that thing's heavy! I am also finally finishing a set of shelves that I inherited from the art department quite some time ago, and it's been living in the barn ever since (there was no room in here for it!). I sanded it today and will paint it tomorrow, and then I need to put the shelves in (it has support braces but no solid shelves, I think I'm going to use acid free foam board instead of buying and cutting wood). It'll be a place to store prints and sketches and paper and mat boards and anything else that needs to stay flat. I also use the handy dandy spaces under all the couches, and I had a bunch of stuff crammed behind the couch in here but now that I'm moving that into the middle of the room I have to relocate it. Fun fun fun.

So, I realize this has been a totally useless blog entry but I just wanted to say I'm alive and really busy but unfortunately not with art production.

Oh and I still haven't set up the bird breeding pens and quite frankly I don't want to hatch a bunch of chicks this year. There, I said it. What's wrong with me?! I'll have to hatch a bunch anyway because that's what it takes but I just feel like "oh geez, here we go again." I wish I could only hatch good ones, that would sure simplify it! ;-)

OH! Ha ha, yeah, so I went to a poultry show down in Fresno this weekend. Last show of the season for me, probably, at least in state (hmm.. thinking...) It was a good turnout there, lots of good birds, big class. I got Best RCCL and Reserve APA Bantam. I have to clarify that's APA Bantam because overall the Reserve Bantam was Mallard duck, but since the APA considers those to be waterfowl and the ABA considers them Bantams, it gets a bit complicated. My bird did well, that's what counts. It's that same black cockerel who has been doing well at the last few show, he sure did turn out nice. I wasn't too sure about him at first.

Gotta go to bed, tomorrow's another crazy day....

Feb 22 work in progress

Well, obviously I did not meet my goal of finishing this by today. Shoot! Not that it's a hugely big deal, I was just hoping to show it off this weekend. It'll be done next week for sure, I think! I think if I hadn't been up to my eyeballs moving furniture and painting walls last weekend I could have gotten it done. Yeah, I'll blame that.

Not much drawing time today. I moved the lamp to a different angle for the photo tonight to try to cut down the glare. Remember, all these "Work In Progress" photos are taken LATE at night with no flash and are not color corrected. This piece will have to be professionally scanned when it's done, I won't be able to do it myself. But in daylight I ought to be able to shoot a good-enough-for-website photo when it's done.

Feb 21 work in progress

Criminy, how did it get so late again.


More work on the background today. The entire top area will be fairly dark graphite too, except for the lights, and there will be some gradation overall so it's not entirely one color and overly dark. The darkness concerns me a little, but... I think it'll be okay. So, why did I not do the background first if I knew all along what it would be? It's always tempting. I mean, the bird is the most fun part of the art, so why not get the rest of it out of the way. If the whole thing was in colored pencil I might have been able to get away with that. But graphite is very slick and very smudgy, and if I'd gotten smudgy parts on the undrawn bird area, it would have been hard to color over. Of course that just means I now have to be exceedingly careful not to smudge the background onto the bird! The background tone will have to be adjusted to fit the bird, which is another reason I didn't want to just block in a dark background right away. I may have to lighten or darken bits and pieces of the background to really make it work. It's not done... and likely won't be done this week, darn it! If I didn't have litho tomorrow I could maybe pull it off but oh well. The foreground is not done either, there is going to be shadowing around the legs and more color brought into the flat gray area. This is a difficult piece. Maybe the smart thing would have been to make the bird white, but dang I love the spangled color! :-)

I also spent a couple hours framing today. I don't talk about framing much but I do a fair amount of custom framing. It's very satisfying to be able to frame my own work for clients, I like being the one to decide how the work will be displayed! So these are three pairs of Standard drawings that are being delivered this weekend. Pardon Olin, the photo that he didn't walk into was blurry so I had to use this one.