Little progress

It was just getting far too hot for me in this room tonight and being bent in so close to the light was not helping. Anyway I got a little bit of work done. I got a good bit of shading filled on on the nose and it's pretty close to finished I think. The hair still needs tons of more work. I really don't like how my teeth show in the photo and I may lay some hair over it just to cover it up. I don't think it's really that essential. I'm still happy with the direction that this is heading in.
I have to say since I started this drawing I've noticed that a lot of the story books we've been reading lately are illustrated with colored pencil. It's made me think of the girl I went to high school with, her colored pencil work was amazing and she did some wonderful illustration work.

Colored Pencil updates

I defined three of the borders, and got some more sketching done. I also realized that I put part of the hair in the wrong place. I'm trying to figure out how to rid of the hair I put in the wrong place. Putting it in the right place is no issue. Some of the hair can just be blended right into the trees part of the background, but the hair over the board is going to be a bit tougher to remedy. I'm wondering if I could just spray it with fixative and then put in a new layers with the colors for the board over it. I know I can work with the extra hair, it may just look a little too thick, but really I don't want that. Other than the hair I'm really happy with everything else I'm doing. This is really challenging but I'm feeling rather good about it. I really like what I did with nose and the glasses, still just need to make this hair look right. I'm starting to fill in some background too around everything so the hair will layer over everything right and so the hair will still have that thin wispy quality of hair.

Another try with colored pencil

I'm having another go at colored pencil. I'm really happy with the last colored pencil piece I did and I've been wanting to try it again. Also I think the reference photo I'm using could only work in color. I thought of using it for a painting but I just really need a break from that right now. So far I have mixed feeling about this. This is a huge challenge for me, most of my face is obscured by my hair so I filled in a bit of the nose then just started focusing on the hair. I'm a little unhappy with the color right now but overall I don't think it's looking that bad, if I can just make it look like hair even if the color is a bit off I think I'll be happy. So far though I'm really happy with the nose.
The first photo is how I'm working on this, and the second photo is how I may orient the piece in the end. I'm not sure though. The photo looks really interesting vertical, but I'm working horizontal because the photo takes us more screen space if it's vertical. I like to use reference photos straight from the screen, I feel like most of the time I loose some depth of color and value when I print photos. I've also been working small enough to accommodate. I've been working on my sketch book paper on the last few pieces. My next piece may be larger, and if this works out I may experiment with different color and textured paper with colored pencils.
The more I look at these photos the better I feel about this. We'll just have to see how this goes. I don't think the hair looks too bad right now.

"Bear"

This photo is a little more true to life. I also updated my site with this drawing. I think I'll start a new drawing tomorrow or the next day. I may do a colored pencil drawing of that one photo I took at the zoo. I'm not sure when I'll finish the painting but I do intend to get back to it.

http://jessicamckelvin.com

Almost done

I got a bit more work done tonight and I finally figured out how to get the texture of the hair on the arm and I'm really happy with it. I'm a little unsure of the pattern of the shirt and may tweak it a bit tomorrow, but I think if I just spend a little extra time on it I might finish tomorrow. And now that I'm looking at it one part of Bear's (Yes the bear's name is Bear, she did have a monkey named Jack to be fair) second foot bothers me a little, and I'll fix that too. I just need to finish putting in the background and clean up those lines in the side walk, right now they all look pretty lopsided.

Small update

I finally got around to drawing out the borders, and I think I'm liking the vertical orientation. At first I wasn't sure but now I think it works. I think I need a little bit of work done in the second arm and of course the bears leg but then I can move on to the shirts and the background. I'm thinking maybe the composition could be a little thinner because it looks like the first body is going to be cropped at an odd place. I'll have to think about that. So far though I'm pretty happy with what I have done and I'm looking forward to working more tomorrow.

More work on my drawing

I didn't get started until late on this, so I didn't get as much done as I would have hoped I realized I have quite a few things to fix and the second hand has a few issues that I need to work out. I'll work on this tomorrow but I think I'll forgo the blog updates for the next few days so I can just concentrate on the work.

I got a bit more work done on my drawing tonight. I had a bit of a hard time smoothing out the arm, but I'm pretty happy with it. I'm going to have to define my borders soon and decide if I want to put in the grid of the side walk in the background, I'm thinking lightly defining it in the background. I took a detail shot of the bear's face because I'm just really happy with the little detail of the stitching I added to the nose.
I have decided to take a small break from painting. It's frustrating me beyond belief. I will finish my painting but I just need a break from it. After I finish it though I'll be deciding whether or not to continue painting (I'm still not sure about it). All I know is right now I'm really happy to be working on a drawing again.

One last thing, I've nominated myself for the Baker Artist's Awards. One of the awards is based off a voting system, so if you like my work and wouldn't mind taking the time to register and vote for me my entry can be found here: http://www.bakerartistawards.org/users/view/jessicamckelvin
You have to register to vote, and if you are a Baltimore Artist you can also nominate your own work.

Art Updates

I did some work on my drawing tonight, and I'm really feeling good about it. Also I'm waiting for my painting to dry so I can implement some drastic changes into the hand. Most of my proportions are off and I really need to fix them. I'll probably get some work done on it tomorrow night though I'll probably end up doing a little with this drawing as well.

Also in prep for the launch of my newsletter I've added a link her to sign up. The newsletter will have some photography (not featured here) and some specials deals just for subscribers. It's a monthly newsletter and should be released around the beginning of each month.

Art Updates

So I did some work on my painting tonight, I got frustrated rather quickly. It feels like I just can't get the fingers right, the shape or color. Also it just feels so disconnected from the face. Of course I put several layers on the face so maybe I just need a few more on the hands. It was that logic that got me to walk away from the painting, but I didn't want to not work on something.I started work on this drawing I've been thinking about doing for a few days now. It's too early to give myself any major critiques but I do love the start of this. I'm going to work on this while I wait for the painting to dry and whenever I get frustrated like I did tonight. This way I feel like I'm progressing on something without completely giving up on the painting.

Painting updates

I still don't think it's much progress, but I did work a little on a few things. I got a little done of the hand, and did a little in the hair. I even worked on the shirt some. I also pushed my self to work past my initial, "I'm getting frustrated, I'll put this away" thoughts. I hope to one day soon sit down and knock out a good bit of progress. I'm tired right now or I'm sure I'd be able to find more things to say about this.

Painting progess

I spent a little bit of time on this and I really didn't make huge progress, but I did spend a lot of time scrapping dry paint off my palette again. I'm really going to push my self to finish this soon. I just got a great reference photo that I want to work with, and I don't want to start anything new before I get done with this one. I still have some tweaking to do in the hand but mostly I just have to fill in more and of course I need more work in the hair. I added some darks to the hair. Also the photo is a bit blurry this time I'll try to take a clearer one next time.

Progress made toward a launch of a newsletter

I'm a bit closer to launching a newsletter. I figured out how to send html in an email. Apparently gmail doesn't recognize html tags, but I can still send an email through my current address with outlook and use that program to insert the html into the email. I really like the idea of using the html, so I can host it on my site as well and have a link to a copy of it in the email (for those with trouble viewing it). The article sample from Dreamweaver is not such a bad place to start either. Though I may just trash that idea and start over. I'm definitely not the best person with design. I still haven't come up with a really awesome logo, just look at my site: link. Maybe my newsletter should just stick with the same simplicity and maybe even the same color scheme and let the content speak for itself. I think I'll add my "logo" to the top of the newsletter, and then just focus on the content. At least now I have a way send it. Soon enough I'll be putting up a link on my site and on my blog so I can get subscriptions. If anyone wants to sign up now though: Click here to sign up to recieve my new newsletter
I think I'll be putting up a similar link to that on my website or blog let me know if anyone hates it. I still haven't figured out contact forms, so creating a newsletter sign up form is a bit beyond me as well.

Newsletter and photography

I'm in the process of looking into creating a newsletter. Even though I'm wanting to move away from photography on my website, I still post some on my blog from time to time, and I think it would be a good addition to a newsletter. I think I'll do a monthly newsletter, it will have new art, photography, information about upcoming projects, shows and I think I'll include special sales just for the newsletter subscribers. I still need to research a bit more into the actual creation of a newsletter, but I think I'll be able to get it off the ground within the next month or so.
With my photography I'm moving away from it on my website because I usually end up wanting to use a lot of it as reference photos. I just feel that it gets a little redundant that way. I still love my photos, that's why I'll still post them on my blog and include them in the newsletter (the newsletter will have photography that will not be posted on the blog as well).