2016 Highlights!

Celebrate what you want to see more of. 

~Tom Peters~

22 drawings in all:

9.5 Commissioned portraits (Buddy is half 2016, half 2017!!)...a lot more colored pencil portraits this year and cats too... I didn't draw a single cat last year!!

11 Drawings...the colored pencil pieces are taking me far longer to draw than graphite.

1 Donated drawing to California Wildlife Center

3 Exhibitions...yikes, that's way down from 2015!! But I did receive a Honorable Mention from the PSA International Open Juried Exhibition for Neighborhood Watch.

2 Publications: 

CP Treasures, Volume IV 2016

North Light Books, Strokes of Genius 9:Creative Discoveries

1 Fantastic trip to Wisconsin for a pastel workshop with Barbara Jaenicke

I'm super excited for 2017...I will have my first solo show at the Gilb Museum in April!! Yay!! Along with 4 other shows in the spring...so I have to get crackin' and turn out some new drawings!

So cheers to 2017... May it be a memorable one!! Happy New Year from my family to yours!!!

The dog days of summer are over!

After two and a half years of only drawing dogs for clients I finally received a kitty commission!! 

Cats and whiskers make an irresistible combination to draw!  I find the process of drawing them in colored pencil a completely different experience from drawing them in graphite. Altho I highly enjoy both, each medium has their own challenges! Adding/layering color into the mix on top of values and textures is certainly an adventure, sometimes in fun other times in frustration!!!

Other commissions this year:

Molly (c) 2016 July 8x10

Rossa (c) 2016 May 8x10

Teddy (c) 2016 May 6x8


Kitty drawings in my Etsy shop:

The Dog did it! (c) 2016  5x7  $155

Forty Winks (c) 2016  5x7 $155

But these are days...

...we dream about, when the sunlight paints us gold. 

~Bright Eyes-The Difference in the Shades~

I took a really good and fun pastel workshop with Barbara Jaenicke at Dillman's Bay Resort in Northern Wisconsin with my sister and dearest girlfriend. Despite the lack of pastels absolutely needed for the class, which caused me a lot of frustration, I just really learned soo much!! For now I am not going to pursue pastel landscape painting but I can apply a lot of what I learned to my colored pencil drawings. And maybe down the road I can dive deeper into pastels when I have more time. But the workshop wasn't the only aspect of this trip I was looking forward to, Dillman's was just SO beautiful and the owners super nice and accommodating...a really old fashion enjoyable place!! I was also there to be with my family and friends as well. A super memorable vacation that included all my favorite things. I will definitely go back again!!

Neighborhood Watch

I started this drawing of the Three Cheetah Brothers exactly 3 years ago, but for some reason I didn't continue working on it after the initial lay out. I thought perhaps I had a commission and then never got back to it, but maybe it was just meant to come to fruition 3 years later!!

 We saw these fine fellows resting under a young acacia tree in Lewa Downs Conservancy, our second camp in Kenya. It was a beautiful day but the nights were very cold in early August.

This "coalition", we were told was very unusual as male cheetahs are territorial, but they obviously got along just fine. We only saw single cheetahs after that throughout the conservancy.

The Cheetah has nearly 2000 solid black spots on him! That's a lot of spots to draw!!!

So happy now that I finally finished drawing Daryl, Larry and Larry as they were so much fun to work on. They are now entered in the Pencil Art Society, 2016 International Open Juried Exhibition...wish me luck!!!

The soul of a horse

"To understand the soul of a horse is the closest human beings can come to knowing perfection."

~ Author Unknown~

In my quest to photograph western theme subject matter for an upcoming exhibition I found myself on Memorial Day at Tom Sawyers where my daughter works taking care of their beautiful horses! I have to admit that I've always liked horses but they were a bit intimidating to me. But after taking photographs and helping water them I developed a much deeper connection with them...in fact I even feel in love with many of them!! Cornbread, the cream colored one in particular was soo sweet!! Yes, there is now a horse in my future!!

In plenty there as well, were ground squirrels, rabbits and birds all pillaging the horses tender alfalfa hay! I enjoyed photographing their thievery and antics as well!!

An amazing morning spent in the company of such majestic creatures...hope I can create a drawing of equal beauty!!

Listen to the whispers of Nature.

 Hear the wisdom of the trees. Allow your soul to sing.

~Lazaris~

For the last few months I've been on the hunt for ducks (with cool reflections) in the LA area. I want to create a colored pencil drawing for the Pencil Art Societies International exhibition in August. You would think it would be an easy thing to do, but as it turns out, not so much!! Through a friend who runs tho, I found the Arroyo in Pasadena, CA. It wasn't a large area and to be honest it was pretty much strewn with litter...ugh, thanks Californians. But I hit the jackpot and found two different types of  mallard ducks with babies! To my recollection, I have never seen a female mallard with a blue stripe before. I scoured the internet, searching for answers, but could not find any, so I have an email in to "AskaNaturalist.com"...hopefully I'll get my answer soon! 

I have some good photo references to choose from, so the hunt is over, but stay tuned as I hope to start it at the beginning of June. I have a bear to get to first!