Finished Corgi Artwork

Hello and Happy Friday!!

As promised, here is my finished Corgi piece.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I love Corgis so much.

Anyways, the picture does not do the size of this piece justice. It’s MASSIVE. I also have no idea what to do with it, lol. But, I digress.

The PanPastels were beyond perfect to give me that “painterly” background I wanted.

Come back next Friday to see what I’m working on next!

If you want to see my art journey in real time, head on over to Instagram.

You can also check out my website here.

Happy Arting!

In the Studio

Hello and Happy Friday!!

HAVE I GOT SOMETHING TO SHARE WITH YOU.

This week, I’m working on my BIGGEST pastel piece to date. This is on Ampersand Pastelbord and is coming in at a whopping 16×20 inches!

This is a sweet little Corgi sitting in the grass. I’m going for a very impressionistic styled background in this piece and my PanPastels are knocking it out of the freaking park!

I’m also changing not only the background from the original reference, but also the color of the collar. Come back next Friday to see the finished piece!

Want to see my art journey in real time? Head on over to Instagram.

Also check out my website here.

Happy Arting!

Finished Greyhound

Hello and Happy Friday!

As promised, here is my finished greyhound piece:

As I said in my last post, my goal for this artwork was to let the values speak for themselves, and not to overfill my lights with details. I’ll tell you, that was hard to do! Bad habits are hard to break!!!! BUT I think I was successful!

I love the dramatic lighting on this piece and how soft the fur looks. I’m incredibly proud of this piece and really can see my growth as an artist in it.

Come back next Friday to see what I’m working on next ! Want to see my artist journey in real time? Head on over to Instagram.

Have you checked out my website yet?

Happy Arting!

In the Studio

Hello and Happy Friday!!

This week I’m going back to my first love- GRAPHITE!

Pretty much all my adult artist life I’ve drawn on illustration board for all of my graphite pieces. However, after using Arches Hot Press watercolor paper for my “Guiding Eyes” piece, I decided to revisit this paper for another graphite artwork.

I also wanted to push myself with my values in this piece, making my darks super dark, and the hardest part for me: keeping my lights LIGHT. I’m such a detail oriented artist, its hard to let the values speak for themselves without filling them up with all my minute details. I do, however, think I succeeded.

Come back next Friday to see the finished piece! Want to see my art journey in real time? Visit my Instagram.

Have you checked out my website yet?

Happy Arting!

Finished Cat drawing + BONUS drawing!

Hello and happy Friday!!! As promised, I’m back today with my finished cat artwork AND a bonus drawing.

First and foremost, this beautiful specimen. I put all of the details on the face and finished the body with pan pastels. In depriving the body of details, my hope was that all the focus would be drawn into the face, especially the eyes.

And now for the bonus piece:

Another pastel piece! Again, in this one I put all the details into the faces and finished the bodies with pan pastels to give it that out of focus look and bring the attention to the faces.

Come back next Friday to see what I’m working on next! If you’d like to follow my art journey in real time, head on over to Instagram.

Also, have you checked out my website yet?

Happy Arting!

In the Studio

Ahhhh….. I *might* have fallen off the blogging bandwagon there for a little bit….

In all honesty, the last few months have been difficult for me and I had to set a few things aside. Blogging was one of them, but thankfully my art was NOT! So I’m back to share all of the artwork I’ve been working on! YAY!

When I saw this reference picture and this kitty’s STUNNING blue eyes I knew immediately that this had to be a pastel piece.

I kept blue in the background as well to really make the eyes, which I consider the focal point of this artwork, really POP.

Come back next Friday to see the finished artwork AND a bonus artwork !!!!! Don’t want to wait? You can see all of my work in real time on Instagram!

Also- have you checked out my website????

Happy Arting!

Finished Panda Drawing

Hello and Happy Friday!

As always, here is my finished Panda drawing from last week:

Gotta say, he’s a pretty cute little buggar and I think he turned out really well. I like the decision to add a few bokeh dots to the background to try and tie it all together.

What are your thoughts? Do you also like to combine panpastels with colored pencils?

Come back next Friday to see what I’m working on next! Don’t want to wait? Follow me on Instagram to see all my work in real time.

Happy Arting!

In the Studio

Hello and Happy Friday! I have got THE CUTEST little guy for you today.

Here is what I’ve been working on:

So, in case you can’t tell- its a Panda Bear eating some bamboo. *SQUEEEEEEE*

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to do this piece in pastels or colored pencils, especially after JUST finishing a colored pencil piece. I have tendonitis in my thumb that was caused by using colored pencils, and it will flare up painfully if I use them too much or on very large pieces.

I went in with PanPastels in the background but quickly decided that I would do the bear in colored pencils.

I’m so glad that I made this decision, because I was able to layer and get so much depth in the fur by going with colored pencils verses pastels.

Come back next Friday for the finished panda! Don’t want to wait? You can follow my Instagram to see all my artwork in real time.

Happy Arting!

Finished Pig Drawing

Hello and Happy Friday!!

As promised, here is my finished pig drawing.

I can’t help but giggle when I look at this drawing. I can’t tell if its his cute little snout or his furriness that tickles me or all of it together- but I think he’s pretty precious.

Granted, I think the background was a bit of a flop. In the reference, piggy is standing on a hay-strewn floor. I wanted to keep that detail in my drawing without going into all the work and, um, DETAIL, of drawing that in. Partly because I don’t get paid enough. and partly because I’m lazy.

Instead I went with the “idea” that there’s some hay there……haha. I know it looks more like a finger painting AND the shadowing is all wrong which gives our pig friend a slightly “out of this world” look to him BUT WHATEVER. I like it. That is all.

Come back next friday to see what I’m working on next!

Can’t wait til then? Check out my In s tagram if you want to stay up to date on all my artwork.

Happy Arting!

In the Studio

This month in the studio, I’m reaching back to my Iowa roots. I’m not really sure what most people think of when they think of Iowa, but I think of pigs. And Corn. And, it being possibly the best place to grow up.

This is done with FaberCastel Polychromos colored pencils on Clarefontaine PastelMat.

Granted, the cows we had in Iowa were not this cute- but its my drawing and my memories, so what? I’d rather forget the time a HUGE sow ran me down in a field. (True story, one my mom probably doesn’t even know about, because if she did she would never have let me go to my friend Heidi’s house again).