Pet Portrait and Printmakers Portfolio

 Here is Mylo's finished portrait which is 6x8" colored pencil on Rtistx board. I used the Icarus board to warm the pencil and smooth it out on the surface.

Below: I have been part of a collaborative effort of thirty one printmakers at the Providence Art Club and Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA, to create forty five portfolios of 5x7" prints. Each artist receives a portfolio and we sell the remaining portfolios. I believe there are only a few left for purchase. My print is below and is titled "Through the Reeds". My processes are solar print etching (turtles) and linoleum cut (reeds) then hand colored with colored pencils. We've been working on this portfolio project for a few years and are very excited to have it completed and opening this weekend.

Pet Portrait of Mylo

I've been working on a 6x8" commissioned colored pencil portrait of this little dog, Mylo. I am working on Rtistx RTX300 board which has a nice tooth to accept the colored pencil and a surface I can varnish later. I can also cut the board and have nice smooth edges which I need because I'm going to frame this piece in a floater frame when it is completed.

For the first several layers of colored pencil I am working on the heated Icarus board in order to melt the pencil and have it go on smoothly and fill in the textured surface of the board where I need it. I can add more layers of pencil and build up the dogs fur with color and texture without too much of the textured board showing through. The Icarus board also helps mesh the pencil into the surface so I can build layers quicker. In these photos, the background hasn't been worked at all yet.

I'll post more photos when I have the portrait completed.

CPSA Silent Auction Piece

This is the colored pencil drawing titled "Flying Away" that I created for the CPSA silent auction which is held during the annual exhibition and convention August 1-4, 2012 in Covington, KY. I worked the drawing on felt gray Canson Mi Tientes paper, although it probably didn't matter what color I used because I covered every little bit with pencil. I used the Icarus Board to help me blend and layer the intense color. I love bright colors and so my blues and greens got quite a work out on this piece. When finished, I mounted it on 8x10" 3/4"-cradled clayboard with archival double tack film. I decided to leave the edges natural wood so I stained them and am varnishing the piece with Golden UVLS polymer varnish to preserve the bright colors.

Kaleidoscope of Koi

Here is my finished piece "Kaleidoscope of Koi". The size is 13x20" and it is all colored pencil on Stonehenge paper with the help of the Icarus Drawing Board for getting rich, intense color. I also burnished with a bristle brush in order to get the solid areas with no pencil lines of paper showing through the drawing. I did not figure out how many hours it took to complete this piece but I worked on it for 3 weeks straight, several hours per day. This is one of the pieces I submitted to the CPSA international exhibition for jurying.

On My Drawing Table

I am working on this very complicated drawing of a group of hungry koi fish, the drawing is on Stonehenge drawing paper and is approximately 14x20". The reference photos I am working from are from a trip I took to Napa Valley several years ago. The Domaine Chandon Winery we visited had some of the largest and most colorful fish I had ever seen. As I leaned over the pond to take photos, they all surfaced at once. In the photo, my shadow covers all of the fish so I am working from imagination and artistic license to bring the fish out of the shadows and into the light. The most challenging part of this composition is working on the water. In my photo the water is lime and olive greens, not colors I find complementary for the fish thus I'm changing colors to darker blue/greens.

I'm also having fun because I am using the Icarus heated drawing board to blend and layer my colors. Using only colored pencils, I start with a color on the cool side, add a second layer of color on the heated side, back on the cool side I burnish with a brush, then back to the heated side to add more layers of color if needed. Our New England weather has begun warming up this week but in previous weeks, the Icarus board has served a double purpose, it also keeps my hands & arms warm on those cold, damp days!!! Some days I want to just lay on top of it and warm up ;-) I'm not sure that Ester who lives in Southern California realizes that her board can also serve to keep cold New England artists warm!

This colored pencil drawing still needs work. I asked my students for comments and they gave me some good suggestions. I asked my husband for his comments and he said "well ... it's abstract ... " Anyway, I'm having fun with it but have been working on this piece since March 1st and eager to finish and move on to the next project.

Angel's Trumpets & Chinese Lantern

I've been on hiatus with my art and my blog writing because we just moved. We only moved to the next town but we downsized from a house to a condo and the whole downsizing process happened during the holidays as we signed the contract to sell our house the day before Thanksgiving. Our move also consisted of helping two of our sons move from our house into their own apartments so it was almost three moves in one. I can't tell you how much stuff I gave away or threw away and we still have a storage unit that is chocked full of Ferreira "treasure" but for now we're settled in and adjusted to our new condo and town. What I like the most is living in downtown Bristol, being able to walk everywhere with many shops and restaurants only a few blocks away (dangerous!). I also like the ease of taking care of a condo as opposed to the house; the trash and recycling chute right in the hallway vs. driving everything to the dump; and on days like this, not having to plow the driveway and shovel the walks. What I miss the most is being able to just let the dog out the door with his invisible fence as now we have to walk him outside on the leash every time he has to go.

Now I'm hoping I'll have more time to spend on art. I've been working on the piece of artwork that I created for the RI Blood Center but I can't show it because it needs to be kept secret and unveiled by the Blood Center in March. I've also been working on this unfinished piece that I blogged about last September and October. I thought I should finish the drawing in honor of Chinese New Year which is this coming Monday. This is just a portion of the piece which fit into my scanner, there is more to the left, to the right, and on the bottom. It's drawn on Rtistx board using Prismacolor and Coloursoft pencils. I needed to smooth out the pencil because of the texture in the board and I didn't want to add solvents so I used the heated Icarus drawing board to soften and melt some of the pencil allowing me to add more pencil layers and smooth them out. What I did find is that the Rtistx board warps when it is heated, thus I had to work on small areas and try to hold the board flat. However, it does flatten out again when it cools.