Commission! (Updated)

So a friend of the friend I painted Jack for has commissioned me to do a painting, of herself & her much-loved beasties. There are a Rabbit, a ferret, a turtle, a Jack Russell terrier and a Rat(deceased).

This is exciting to me because it's the sort of work I most want to do, and it sought me out! It's like the Universe wants me to stay home in my painting hoodie and make Art.


it's my favorite hoodie

It's only got paint on it recently, and only because I wear it ALL THE TIME. It was made by an Artist as well.


I make my own canvases. This one is 2x4 feet

The beige spots are not schmutz, they just didnt get primed yet



Puttin in the big pieces of color. I've got sketches going of the animals, but must compose the rest with paint. The tablecloth will not be that hideous shade of pink. More tea things & delicacies to be added. This is about one-third finished; I think the background is trying to punch above its weight but, it will eventually get sorted. The egg floating above it is part of my easel : p

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Also a guy I know who doesn't like heights sought me out to patch some bits on his roof, around the plumbing vents. I don't normally get paid to climb up on roofs and Boy Howdy is it fun, so double excitement this week.

*UPDATE!* the roofing job went well and hasn't leaked as of yesterday's downpour. I didn't fall off either, butt I have noted that there is no comfortable place to sit on a 45-degree angled roof. Don't let the ridgeline fool you either; between that and my constant crouching and/or crabwalking, my underpinnings were very very sore.

The things we do for money....

Updated 1-29-12

it's weird doing faces. There's always the gnawing dread that you'll show a person their portrait and they'll recoil in horror and go. "I don't look like THAT!"

I may redo this part. Imagine less, trace more. Creep her Facebook photos ; )

Much better.

It was fairly dark when i took this pic. Submitted for final approval 2/6/2012

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself." -Wilde

Sounds about right. Alice is a novice, a wanderer in a strange land. The Hatter is an adept; not a King or Queen, but well dressed, well fed, and in masterful possession of a useful Skill.


I prefer the term "Milliner to the Differently Saned"



In Situ Repair & Embellishment

 A table given to me by a friend. I have shifted the shelf that was leaning on it to the pile of vhs at the far left.

Paint the exposed weathered wood...

Add insect parts and random shiny things according to personal taste...

 Pour on a thick layer of THE STUFF, which is...

...cycloaliphatic non-blushing epoxy resin (marine grade) used for the fiberglass part of making boats. There isn't really any in this picture, this is just the thing i mixed it in.

I didn't set out to do this specific project today but i had some of The Stuff mixed up & left over from the other thing i was doing and didn't want to waste it. It was just enough, serendipitously. Must be because i'm such a good planner.