Karin's Boots

graphite pencil on paper

Here is my latest entry for Karin Jurick"s weekly challenge. She asked us to try something different so I decided to stay away from paint and stick with pencil and paper.

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On The Road To Rock Creek Tavern

11"x 14"
acrylic on masonite

For those of you who live in Oregon and are familiar with McMenamins' Rock Creek Tavern, this painting is of a photo taken on the road right in front of it. We were on our way to the Plumper Pumpkin Patch and luckily my husband was driving so I could take this photo.
I'm still working on trying to take better photos of my artwork...January's project!!!

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Karin's Buddha

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

Here is my latest entry to Karin Jurick's weekly challenge. It is a picture of her Buddha. I am still trying to learn to take good photos of my artwork. My list of "Things to Learn" continues to grow! Hopefully I can focus on this in January!
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Danny Gregory's Post-it Party

Post-It Party

If you have not heard of Danny Gregory, I encourage you to visit his site. He does wonderful drawings of every day things and has written several books about drawing and creativity, the most recent being "An Illustrated Life". He is now teaching a drawing class and posted about an exercise they did in their class. Each person was given a small section to draw and the final image was revealed when all the drawings were put together! I thought it was a wonderful idea that could be adapted for many different uses. Please check out the complete entry: http://www.dannygregory.com/

Upside Down

8"x 10"
acrylic on masonite

Here is my entry in this week's Different Strokes challenge. The twist (or flip) to this challenge was that we were to paint 90% of it upside down.... not me, the painting and image! I frequently turn my paintings or drawings upside down or use a mirror to see them from a different angle. However, I have never painted something from start to almost finish upside down and it was a great exercise.
As Karin Jurick put it when she explained the challenge, " By flipping the image, you're more likely to render what you see, and not what you know. You are guided by shapes, blocks of color - logic goes out the window."

TED Video On Creativity And Play

Just watched a very interesting and fun TED video on creativity and play:

"At the 2008 Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play -- with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn't). "

If you watch it, I'd love to hear your thoughts! http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html

Crosswalk

12"x 12"
acrylic on masonite

Just submitted this painting to Karin Jurick's Different Strokes website. The challenge this week was to paint shadows.
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Bunny With a Toolbelt

Alyson Stanfield has provided me and MANY others with valuable information , advice and encouragement. Currently, she is providing five conversations with successful artists. I recently listened to the interview with Portland artist, Hilary Pfeifer , a.k.a. Bunny With a Toolbelt. Her work is fun, fantastic, colorful? You need to visit her website and decide!

How About Some Words?

A couple of weeks ago I sent out a request for Inspiration Ideas and have received several photos!
But how about some words? Do you have a favorite saying, quote, words of wisdom passed down through the ages or just 'a word' ?
I'd love to hear from you and remember that I am picking one entry a month, to paint or draw, but will keep all the entries and as a "thank you for the inspiration", will give you an art reproduction or set of note cards of your choice! You can leave a comment here or email me at annie@anniesalness.com. Hope to hear from you soon!

U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

5"x 7"

acrylic on canvas board

My latest entry for Karin Jurick's challenge.
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Pears

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

A small painting of pears....'tis the season!
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Seth Godin On Marketing

Just watched a great 15 minute video of marketing expert Seth Godin talk about being remarkable on TED.

smARTist Telesummit

Ariane Goodwin organized a telesummit last January which I attended and found very useful. It was a new experience for me. I was able to listen to 13 different experts share and receive their handouts all from the comfort of my home and at my convenience. There was an opportunity to listen live or listen to the recording when it fit my schedule. I kept all the notes in a notebook and have referred to them throughout the year. Ariane is offering the 2008 telesummit for a $60 discount through Halloween. The speakers include experts such as Jennifer Loudon, organizational expert; Joan Stewart, promotional expert; Alyson Stanfield, art career expert; Leonard DuBoff art law expert. Click here for more info and to listen to a 60 min sample!

Enjoying Autumn

5" x 7"
acrylic on masonite
sold

My latest submission for Different Strokes From Different Folks.
Click on image for larger view.
Click here to bid.

Inspiration From You

Inspiration for my art comes from many places. Sometimes it’s a photo that I’ve seen. Other times it’s the way a certain part of town or scenery makes me feel … so I go grab my camera to capture what I can.

I thought it would be fun to include my friends and blog followers in my search for inspiration.
I want to know …What inspires you? What would you like me to paint?

Do you have a photo that really speaks to you? Or maybe it’s an idea that tugs at you a bit? I’d love to know about it. It could be a place, an object, food, a quote, a book , etc. If you want to include people, I would prefer something that does not focus on their face. It is amazing how you can recognize someone by their posture or gesture! Let's see what we can create together!

Please submit your photos or ideas to me at: annie@anniesalness.com. If I choose your submission to paint, I’ll give you a free reproduction or note cards as my way of saying, “Thanks for the inspiration!”

Fall Trees

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

The color of the leaves on the trees and the light is glorious this time of year! I have been taking pictures and stopping to look and appreciate at every opportunity.
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Apples

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

Here is a quick painting where I added some different colors to my palette and tried to work on my edges.
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New Golden Products

I just attended a very informative demo about the new Golden OPEN Acrylics and Digital grounds.
The Open Acrylics stay wet significantly longer than the regular acrylics and the OPEN mediums and paints can be mixed with Golden regular paints allowing you adjust the open time to your personal preferences!
The digital grounds are amazing:
GOLDEN Digital Grounds turn just about any relatively flat surface into an ink-jet printable surface, providing the control and freedom to create textures and surfaces at whatever scale and shape desired.
If you do any ink jet printing, I highly recommend that you spend some time reading about them.

An Illustrated Life

Danny Gregory, author of Everyday Matters and The Creative License, has a new book coming out in the next month or so called An Illustrated Life. There are several artists featured in this book and he has been doing podcasts with some of the artists to talk about their artwork. The podcasts are only about thirty minutes each and very informative. I like to go to the artist's website and look around at their work while listening.
I encourage you to spend some time on Danny's site and his books are excellent too!

The Bean

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

Here is the weekly challenge for Different Strokes From Different Folks. This is a painting of Cloud Gate in Millennium Park in Chicago. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to click on the link and see the photo. It is very impressive!

Click on image for a larger view.

Sir Ken Robinson

I just watched a very stirring video from a TED conference:

"Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. "

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Anne Bagby Workshop

I am gathering my art supplies to take to Anne Bagby's workshop at the Art and Soul Retreat here in Portland. I have never been to an Art and Soul event, but I am excited to take Anne's class. She has been featured in The Artist's Magazine and Somerset Studio and does beautiful work. Maybe I'll post a picture if I produce anything decent!

Garlic and Rosemary

Garlic and Rosemary
5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

sold

Two of my favorite ingredients.

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Pose Maniacs

I am incorporating a few minutes of quick, warm up sketches to my morning routine. One great resource is Pose Maniacs. On this site there are choices for 30 sec poses, negative space drawings, hands for drawing, etc. Any other resources out there?

Dave The Painting Guy

Through Twitter and Blogger and email, I was fortunate to stumble upon a very talented artist, David Darrow. Among other things, "Dave The Painting Guy" does a live studio session starting at 5 pm PT that is open to any and all to view and learn! On Thursday evenings he spends the first hour critiquing a painting. There is a live chat going on at the same time which allows viewers to comment and ask questions and Dave to answer the questions.

Last week he shared this quote replacing the word "music" with "art":

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

Johann Sebastian Bach quote

Three White Pumpkins

8"x 8"
acrylic on masonite

sold

Here's the most recent painting for the "Different Strokes From Different Folks" challenge from Karin Jurick's website.

Quick Sketches

Soccer season is here which provides many photo opportunities!



One of my favorite classes in college was Life Drawing. And one of my favorite exercises in that class was the timed sketches. We would do 30 seconds to a few minutes to one hour. The quick sketches were the best because you were forced to make a decision and put it down in a hurry because at the end of the time the model would move! Some of my most beautiful drawings were done in seconds or minutes. Just like anything else it takes practice and I am out of practice! I think I need to buy an egg timer that ticks to give me a bigger sense of urgency! I'm hoping to do at least one quick sketch a day and hopefully reclaim some of the fluidity and line quality I once had......
These are charcoal and pencil drawings on newsprint.

Morning Paper

5"x 7"
acrilyc on masonite

sold

Here is my submission for this week's photo for Different Strokes From Different Folks.
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Lisa Kaus' Trunk Show

Fun and whimsical artwork by Lisa Kaus.

I spent a few hours last Saturday visiting Lisa Kaus at her trunk show at the Jealous Gardener , a beautiful home decor and gift shop, in Portland, Oregon. Lisa creates beautiful whimsical pieces with mixed media and salvaged treasures! She sells her work online and in many retail outlets, has been featured in several magazines and teaches workshops. She will be teaching at the upcoming Art and Soul workshops coming up in October. Plus, she's super nice!

Oregon Farm Landscape

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

We have beautiful farmland in Oregon. I am trying to loosen up my brushstrokes with a lot of squinting and a time limit!
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Finished Bear Painting

36"x 60"
acrylic on canvas
sold

Here is the finished bear painting. This is actually the second large bear painting I've done. The first is below:
Click on image for larger view.

48"x 72"
acrylic on canvas
sold

Both bears were very fun to paint. I enjoy the large scale and incorporating so much color.
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Rehoboth Beach Landscape

5"x 7"
acrylic on masonite

Here is the second painting from a photo from Karin Jurick's site Different Strokes From Different Folks . Surprisingly, painting the sand and grass was hard!

Jack

8"x 8"
acrylic on masonite
sold

One of my favorite artist's, Karin Jurick, has decided to have a weekly challenge of painting a photo that she posts on her new website, Different Strokes From Different Folks, on blogspot.
This first photo is of her dear and recently departed friend and companion, Jack.
I encourage you to visit www.KarinJurick.blogspot.com to see her wonderful work!

Click on image for larger view.

More newspaper faces

I have continued to draw faces from the newspaper almost everyday and have quite a collection now. The newspaper provides a never ending supply of interesting people to draw!
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Here's Herbie!

8"x8"
acrylic on masonite

sold

I was communicating via email with a very nice lady from Brand Innovators and saw a picture of her dog Herbie at the bottom of her email.......I couldn't resist and asked if I could paint him!

Click on image for larger view.

Let the Logo Games Begin

I am always looking to learn and have recently subscribed to HOW magazine which is for graphic designers. Through their website I found and read a very informative and fun blog entry from a graphic design firm called id29 (www.id29.com) titled, "Let the Logo Games Begin" where they hired four online logo design companies, gave them the same visual identity problem to solve and critiqued the results. Every time I create I am designing and it is helpful to get different perspectives.

Bear Painting Process Update

Here is another bear painting update. (The last update was posted on July 11) I made the trees a bit more abstract. Even though the trees are a bit busy, there will be black outlining in the bear when it is done which will really make it pop out. I love it when you find a painting you love to look at as a whole, but can also find small areas of color or brush stroke, etc. that you like to spend time looking at. I have had a lot of fun really developing the smaller areas, but when I am painting something this large, I have to be careful not to get lost in the small areas and forget to pull myself back and remember the painting as a whole! Unfortunately my photo doesn't show all the beautiful color as well as I would like it to. So much to learn!
Click on image for larger view.

Volleyball T-shirt

Here's the t-shirt! The kids love it!

We were out of town last week so I am back to painting this week. I plan to post an updated picture of the bear soon.

Volleyball T-shirt Design

My husband is the head girls' volleyball coach at the high school where he teaches and he asked me to design a t-shirt for the girls. Unfortunately I don't know how to do any designing on the computer! Thank goodness for my light table and copier that allows me to reduce and enlarge! So, an ink cartridge and ream of copy paper later I think I have a design! I wanted it to look hand-drawn (good thing, huh?) and have a distressed, stamped look. I'm sure that I could have clicked this look quickly on a computer, but lacking the program and the know-how for that, I took my drawing and reduced it down to about 1/2 an inch and then enlarged that which distorted the lines. I scanned the images and emailed them to the printers. Hopefully it will be layered with the netting image in gray, the squiggly image in purple and the "Sunset" in black! If it turns out, I'll post the results!

Bear Painting Process

I thought it might be fun to show the process of creating a painting for a client. I wish I had thought of it earlier so that I could include more steps, but here's what I have. This is a 5"x7" painting "sketch" for the final painting that will be 36"x60". This step is critical for me to work through the color and composition on a small scale and it allows me to give the client a good idea of what their painting will look like.
This is a picture of the final canvas in progress. I did a wash of yellow ochre over the entire canvas and then drew the bear in charcoal and blocked in the dark areas with burnt umber. I'll post more pictures as the painting progresses!

Some Kind Of Citrus?

Just an experiment with acrylic paint and pencil in some of my favorite colors.....

Doggies Go To Market 2

8"x10"
acrylic on masonite

Another dog at the Beaverton Farmers' Market enjoying the sun, sites, and smells!

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Doggies Go To Market

8"x8"
acrylic on masonite

The sun FINALLY came out so I went to the Beaverton and Cedar Mill Farmers' Markets and spent a lovely Saturday morning enjoying the sunshine, listening to music, watching people and lots of happy doggies!

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Pierce and Grandpa

5"x7"
acrylic on masonite
sold

My niece took this picture of her dad and her son and It seemed to be the perfect moment to capture in a painting. I find that I have a harder time loosening up when I paint people I know because I worry too much about getting it "right"!

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Fresh Spring Strawberries

6"x 6"
acrylic on masonite

Fresh strawberries inspired this little painting and allowed me to work through my challenge of painting with red.
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Kentucky Derby Inspired

We watched the Kentucky Derby on Saturday and I was inspired to do this charcoal and conte drawing on a brown paper bag.

Newspaper Faces

The newspaper provides an unlimited supply of interesting faces to draw. I've been drawing one a day for the past several weeks. Here is a sample.

I am very fortunate to have my mother living in the city of Avalon on the beautiful Catalina Island off the coast of southern California. In the mile square town, most of the residents and tourists travel by golf cart which adds to the charm of the picturesque town.
5"x7" acrylic on board

You Strain Out a Gnat But Swallow a Camel

I have many friends who read the Bible and journal and gain profound insight and wisdom and are able to eloquently express and articulate what they have learned . I guess I'm wired a little differently! As I was reading Matthew 23 (specifically 23:24) this morning this image came to mind. :)

Gerbers in acrylic and pen and ink

I love mixed media, so I am playing with some different techniques and continually experimenting with and learning about color. This simple still life is a 5x7 acrylic and pen and ink on canvas board. I am also trying to learn to take decent pictures of my artwork! The yellows and purples seem to be hard to capture.