It has been awhile ....

The first part of this year has been what I would deem as NOT routine.  We lost our little min-pin due to liver cancer; hopefully we will have a little min-pin puppy to fill the void left by Danny Boy in late summer or early fall.  One of the few pieces of artwork I have completed this year included the one below with Danny Boy as part of the subject matter.  Actually completed shortly before he crossed over "The Rainbow Bridge".  It doesn't quite look like him, but enough so that I know it is him.

"Storytime" (February CPM Art Challenge) reference photo by Sally Robertson.

My hubby has been having a really rough time, health wise, and has spent a considerable amount of time in and out of the hospital.  We have been married for over 47 years, and I have found this to be very hard to experience.  At times I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave over him and make him healthy and happy. Instead, I pray ... a lot.  Guess you could say I am using a magic wand of sorts, it just happens to be called prayer.

One thing that has helped to keep my hand in art, during this time, are the monthly art challenges issued by the Colored Pencil Magazine.   Here is a link that will take you over to the entries:  Colored Pencil Magazine (CPM Challenge Pool) 

If an artist is able to enter each month's challenge for 2015, those artists will win a free subscription for one year to the Colored Pencil Magazine.  My goal is to complete each monthly challenge for 2015!  The above colored pencil painting is one of those entries.  Following are the others for this year:

January 2015
"Snow Baby" reference photo by Sally Robertson

and "Snow Babies"

March 2015 "Rust and Stuff" reference photo by Sally Robertson

April 2015 "Spring Daisies" reference by Sally Robertson

Currently I am working on the May Challenge (deadline is 6/10/15), the photo reference is a "White Peacock", already there are several magnificent entries!

Oh!  I did have fun recreating the clown I did in acrylics in December 2014, this time I did it with colored pencils for an entry in a "Nibblefest Art Challenge", this was a fun piece and ended up with a lady who really likes my artwork.

"Clown" reference photo by unknown photographer

Earlier this year I thought it would be fun to try out a few pieces using white colored pencil on black paper ... the results were actually better than I anticipated!

"Horse Silhouette" by Hannah Garrison

"White Monarch Butterfly" reference photo by Jacqueline Crawley

"Racoon" reference photo by Tim Bredow

This pretty much catches you up on my art activity for 2015, not much but at least it is something!

Take care and God bless,
Karen Anne

January 2014 Nibblefest Art Contest "Blue" Entries

Here are my three original art entries in the Nibblefest Art Contest (NFAC), a themed art contest beginning on the 20th of each month. The theme for January 2014 is "Blue".  These three entries are all ACEO sized pieces (2.5" x 3.5"); using colored pencils, fine tip marker pens on Stonehenge Art Paper.

If you would like for my artwork to win please vote with your bid. The bidding starts at only $.99 and the winner each month is the entry that has the most bids.

Please be sure to search for NFAC (on eBay) to find and enjoy all the great entries, each starting at just $0.99. This is a great opportunity for you to possibly own a beautiful piece of artwork!

Feel free to share this post if you like it! Thanks a bunch!

"Blue Belle"

"Blue in Blue"

"Blue Psychodelic Wabbit"

Christmas 2013

I have been missing from the blog scene for over a month now and thought I'd let you know what I have been doing ... I have been making "Beaded Ornament" Covers for Christmas gifts this year!

Here is a photo of a group of 20 of them, I ended up making a total of 36 this year (for family only, none for sale) ... missed my goal by 6!

Here are some on our Christmas tree ...

The following are some individual photos I took ....

I think I will make about 2 a month in 2014 so that I don't end up doing everything at the end of the year.   I still owe Jim 6 more ornaments from 2013 ... good thing he is an understanding hubby!

Wishing all my friends a wonderful New Year!

Karen Anne aka Ireland Brady

PS  If you could say some prayers for my Jim, that would be wonderful.  He is undergoing chemo treatments for colon/rectal cancer, stage two.  We are hoping the first 6 treatments will shrink the cancer enough so they can surgically remove it.  If so, then once he has healed he will undergo another series of 6 - 8 chemo treatments; they are trying to avoid radiation if at all possible.  

Big hugs everyone!  

Strathmore Artist Papers - New Product - Featured Artist ....

I have been keeping a "secret" since early May of this year.  I've just been bursting to share it, but I promised I wouldn't say a word to anyone (except Jim) until it was made public.  Well ... yesterday I saw it advertised at Amazon.com so I figure that is about as public as something can get!

Let's go back to 5/7/2013 when I received an email with the subject line "Zentangle Art for Strathmore".  Well naturally that piqued my curiosity, what artist hasn't heard of or worked on Strathmore paper?!  I opened the email and here is the first part of that message:

"Dear Karen,

My name is S___ S______ and I am with Strathmore Artist Papers (www.strathmoreartist.com).

We are in the process of developing a new product line called “Artist Tiles”, to be used for meditative art, patterning, and “Zentangle” style artwork. As I was doing research, I came some of your artwork and Zentangles. We really love your style and wanted to get in touch with you to see if you’d be interested in having your artwork featured on the packaging of our new product. One of the products we are creating for this line is 4”x4” Artist Tiles in retail packs. The paper used for these tiles would be our 400 Series Watercolor. We thought your style could be a great fit for this product specifically." 

I'll tell you, I was so stunned I nearly fell off my chair ... you could have knocked me over with a hummingbird feather ... Strathmore, contacting me?  Surely this has to be a joke some one is playing on me ... this can't be real, can it?  Well, it sure looked pretty real to me so I thought "OK ... I'll bite ..." and I responded.  They responded back! And with a contract no less!  We came to an agreement, they sent the product for me to work on, I created a piece of Zentangle watercolor artwork, sent it off to Strathmore and sat back a waited.

In the meantime I still kept thinking ... this is the best dream I have EVER had!  The original piece of art was returned and I had been compensated for my time but still it did not seem real, that is until yesterday when I was once again contacted by S.S. at Strathmore.   Then I googled "Strathmore Artist Tiles" and lo and behold .... there it was!  A Strathmore product with my art work on it!

It's NOT a dream, it is real!  Now I can share what I have been keeping a secret for what seems like forever ... the new Strathmore product with the artwork of your's truly on the front!  Ta-da!

And here is the original art piece ....

This day is certainly filled with a LOT of sunshine and Thank You very much Strathmore!

Happy day all!

Big hugs,
Karen Anne aka Ireland Brady

The January 2013 Colored Pencil Magazine challege

January's challenge at the CPM  is of a snow leopard, here is the original photo that has been provided for interpretation ....

a magnificent cat to be sure!

Drawings of animals are NOT a strong suit with me ... in fact, I generally avoid them so this was a real challenge!  I have a heck of a time drawing anything facing to the right, this being a cat facing the right was just too much of a challenge, so when I downloaded the photo image I flipped it so the leopard was facing to the left ... better odds that I would actually capture an image that somewhat bore a resemblance of the original photo.

That being said, here is my attempt at a "Snow Leopard" ...

You can view all the entries at:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/cpmchallenge/pool/
You will find many wonderful entries here and a wide range of artistic interpretations!

I am super excited about the February Challenge, it is of a red beta fish with glorious fins!  Working on it right now and look forward to sharing my version in a week or so.... Yes!

Take care and be happy!
Karen Anne

PS  If you are an artist who works with colored pencils, why not come over and join in on the challenges?  It is for Pros and Students alike!  It is loads of fun and one terrific group of people!

Dillywink aka Dilly Boy has arrived!

A new family member arrived at the house today!  His name is Dillywink (aka Dilly Boy) and he is one of the "Lollipop Munchkins" created especially for the "Celebrate Oz 2012" Blog Party by the extremely talented and wonderfully generous Maddy Rose!   It was announced in her blog that one lucky winner would receive the ultimate gift of Dillywink in a random drawing ... I am giddy with delight that out of all the entries ... my name was drawn and I am now Dilly Boy's new Mom!

Be sure to visit her blog/store "Santa and the Mrs." to check out all the amazing character figures that Maddy Rose has created.  In fact, Maddy Rose is now having a "Christmas In July" BOGO Sale that you just might want to take advantage of!  Be prepared to be amazed!  The photo images of her creations do not even begin to do justice to her magnificent abilities ... be sure to visit!

Dilly Boy (as we have nick named him) is beyond a normal doll ... he is an artistic creation with exquisite detailing and, quite honestly, is a wonderful example of three dimensional fine art!   My husband and I are dumb struck by all of the love, care, creativity, imagination and attention to the smallest details that Maddy Rose puts into her OOAK creations ...

Once we opened up the package containing our youngest member, he jumped up and gave me one of the biggest, warmest hugs I have ever received!  Then we went on to introduce him to some of the members of our Brady Bunch Menagerie ....

The first to meet and enjoy a long visit with Dilly Boy were the "Hopscotch Hill" girls ...
they were ecstatic over his arrival ...

 

Dilly Boy began telling them of his adventures at Maddy Rose's and all of the friends he left behind ...  he didn't mind leaving behind the Wicked Witch ... she had scared him a bit even though he knew she cared about him.  But he is determined to keep them in his life through pictures and sharing with them his new family and friends!

Next, the Humming Belles and Beau (our resident fairies) flew in to give a warm greeting to Dilly Boy ... but they quickly had to depart ... they want to spread the word throughout the land about "Maddy Rose's Christmas in July Sale".   They promised they'd be back soon to get to know and play with Dilly Boy once they had accomplished their chosen mission....

You can see they were serious ... they are all dressed up in their Christmas attire to help promote Maddy Rose's Oz-picious Christmas in July sale!

Dilly Boy was so excited about sharing his new digs with everyone that he even jumped up and began helping me out with photo-editing some of the pictures we had been taking ... here is Dilly Boy getting right into the swing of things!

His knowledge of photo-editing is quite Oz-mazing!   He must have learned that whilst he was still residing in Munchkinville?  I'm sure I will find out later ... right now I have to go help the girls lay out a welcome lunch for dear Dilly Boy ...

Dilly Boy will be sharing more of his new adventures with the Brady Bunch in the days and weeks and months and years to come!

Happy Day everyone!
Karen Anne and Dilly Boy

Beach Scene WIP - Day 12 - Final Day

Well, she is finally complete .... I did bits of detail work here and there, especially on lightening some of the driftwood pieces behind the little girl, and decided I best stop before I really do overwork this piece!

If you would like to see the step by step slideshow video I made of this piece, you can find it right here ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAlJcBqBEXs

Happy day everyone!

Karen Anne Brady aka IrelandBrady

Beach Scene -WIP - Day 11

Today we needed to drop off Danny Boy at the vets for his semi-annual wellness checkup and needed vaccines ... plus major nail clipping.  So we took advantage and did a bit of shopping ... couple thrift stores, topped off with a visit to the grocery store. 

By the time we got back to the house I had about an hour before we needed to pickup up DB so I did a bit more work on the little girl's face and began working on her hair.  With her hair I put in the shadows and highlights using various browns for the shadows and beige and goldenrod for the highlights.  After that was complete I used dark brown and a light brown ink fine tip illustrations pens to detail the strands of hair. 

Tomorrow I will touch up different parts of the illustration and, hopefully, this colored pencil painting will be completed!

Happy day everyone!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 10

I began today by finishing the hands, complete with sand!  The shoe was next followed by the feather in the sand castle.  Moving along nicely today! 

After studying the illustration awhile, I decided to darken the sand and make it a bit more grainy ... more like real sand.  I accomplished this by lightly rubbing the side of the lead (used several different colors of brown) over the sandy area and the little "hills" still remaining in the paper picked up just a tiny bit of added color and provided more of a sand look. 

Next I got one of Jim's old glass ball floats to use as a reference and noticed it has all kinds of little bubbles in the glass; so I took a piece of tracing paper and laid it over the, yet uncolored, glass float and with an ink pen I drew little circles and dots on the tracing paper which left indentations on the art paper.  I then began coloring in the float with varying colors of bluish green to deep greens, after which I used a very pale green pencil to blend all the layers together and achieve a glassy effect.    I think it looks OK, what do you think?

When I began coloring in her face I started off with my Prismacolor soft core pencils and quickly noticed the lead was a bit too soft to get the detail I was seeking.  So....out comes the museum putty and I removed the first four layers I had applied.  Put those pencils back and pulled out my Prismacolor Verithin pencils and began again.  I have about four layers on her face at this point and find these pencils are providing the softness and delicacy I am looking for.

I am finished for today and am going to kick back, relax and will be studying the drawing and plan how I want to proceed tomorrow.    Then I'll have to figure out "What's for dinner?"!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 10

Today was glorious outside!  In the low 80's .... I was so distracted I put very little time into the illustration ... I did mange to finish the jeans and begin working on the hands.

Tomorrow is back down to the low 60's so I'll most likely get a lot more accomplished....

 

Happy Day!

Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 8

I'm finished with the sand area of the scene for now, will probably add more shading once the little girl is finished.  Tomorrow I hope to begin work on her clothing and hands, I am planning to save the face and hair for the last segments of this WIP.

Company for dinner tonight so this will have to be as far as I go today!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 7

I don't know about you, but when I am working on a project my "art" area tends to turn from organized at the onset to utter chaos after several days.  Today I sat down to work on the scene and realized I had over 50 percent of my pencils spread all over the table leaving very little room for me and the drawing.  As you may have surmised by now, I spent nearly two hours cleaning and organizing ... ahhhhhhh ... I now have a fresh start midway through my project. 

Because of this little foray into organization I ended up with less time to devote to the scene than I had originally anticipated.  I did manage to color in the pail, the shovel, the cockle shell and the feather that is lying on the sand, PLUS a bit of sand shading!  We are slowly but surely working our way the to true subject of this little project.....

Here we go for this day's progress ...

 

This bit of mid-way cleaning has refreshed my spirit as well ... that is a good thing!

I don't know about your area of the country, but here in Portland it is raining buckets!  We've also been receiving more than our fair share of high winds ... here's hoping the ground doesn't get so water saturated that one of the large trees comes tumbling down ... especially not on the house!

Happy Day!

Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 6

I was off to a slow start today ... primarily because I was afraid of the sand and how to do it.  So while I was thinking about how to attack the sand I completed the sand dollar leaning against the log.  One of the extra shells I wanted to eliminate kept showing up as a ghost in the sand and I couldn't seem to find a way to color over it without the initial pencil indentations showing through ... so I gave into the shell and put him back into the illustration.  Shell won that round!

I finally decided, Oh Heck!  blending and stippling for the sand just isn't working so I took my goldenrod Prismacolor Verithin pencil and using the side of the lead began making squiggly marks in varying depth of color ... it seems to be giving me the effect I was seeking!  Yes!  I have now laid a base of squiggly golden rod over the entire sand area, I think I am off to a good start there.  I needed to begin the coloring of the sand pail because I kept getting the sand color into the bucket's "space" .... he felt he was loosing ground to the sand and asked that I at least give him a color primer.  He is much happier now ....

You know when you are getting too involved in a drawing when you began to feel empathy for the objects and they begin telling you what they want done!

Til tomorrow - Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 5

Well now, I learned a really important lesson today ... NOT a good idea to do art work with dilated eyes!  I thought a layer of Jasmine would look nice over the beige color - wrong!  Made the sand too yellowish ... I should have pre-tested it on a separate sheet of paper first.  So I walked away from the piece for a couple of hours.

Once my vision started working again I went in and removed as much of the jasmine color as possible with the aid of "Miracle" tape.  Jim had suggested that I put some moss on the driftwood, so I added that to a few of the pieces.  He thought they were too pristine looking as they were and I think it was a good suggestion.

Then I noticed the dents in the paper from one of my earlier funky shells was coming through (a ghost shell) and thought I would disguise that area as a rock.  I may turn the sand dollar into a rock as well, and add a few more stones and small pieces of wood to the scene.
We'll see how I feel about that tomorrow....

Not much to show today ..... I look forward to getting an early start tomorrow!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 4

Well today began with a visit to the dentist, followed by "Bills" (ever notice how "rich" you feel before you begin paying your bills, then you slide down into "poor" as the balance slowly decreases...), take Danny Boy for a short walk ... and finally back to my drawing!  Yes!

All of the original driftwood pieces are now complete (I may add more random pieces in the picture and for now I removed the two odd shells on the left side - Jim pointed out they were distracting from the subject and I agreed).  After this I sprayed a light layer of workable fixative over the finished area to protect it from smudging as I begin working on other areas.

Next I used an X-acto knife blade and gently traced around the little girl and her sand castle, removed the excess fisker masking plastic and exposed the beach area; leaving the little girl still protected with the remaining fisker. 

In this newly exposed area I began by laying down a light layer of beige over all the areas that are sand.  I am keeping a list of the colors I use for the sand so that when I work on the sand castle I'll remember the colors used in the sand, otherwise the little castle might turn out a completely different color.  I plan to use quite a bit of stippling in the sandy area to give the impression of sand.

So, for today we now have .....

 Happy Day!
Karen Anne Brady

Beach Scene WIP - Day 3

Most of the driftwood has now been completed, just the large piece behind the little girl and a small piece sticking out from under remain unfinished and they should be completed tomorrow.  I did manage to work in the ocean and blend it into the sky, and I think I'll keep it!  I have never before attempted ocean waves but these look pretty good to me, glad they were distant waves!

Guess you can now see that I am pretty much committed to sharing this work in progress with all of you.  I want to thank all you for your input and encouraging me to do so.  Gosh, I certainly have some really nice friends!

Happy Day!

Karen Anne Brady 

PS  Did you notice the extra piece of driftwood that I added to the pile??? 8~D

Beach Scene - WIP - Day 2

On this day I took the tracing paper drawing and transferred it to Stonehenge paper (size 9" x 12") with the aid of my trusting, old, dependable light table.  This time I used a terra cotta color pencil to transfer the drawing, it's a bit on the pale side but at least this color will not interfere with the colors I add.

Over the area with the little girl and the sand I placed a sheet of clear fisker plastic, so that I won't be rubbing off skin oils or smudge that part while I am working on the driftwood pieces portion.  I am deviating from the colors in the photo because I like all the different hues and tones of driftwood (I love to collect odd twisted pieces of driftwood when I'm at the coast ... they remind me of beautiful works of art created by Mother Nature).  Some pieces are relatively new and hold some of their original color, whilst other pieces have turned wonderful shades of grey and whitened in light of the sun.   Others have been used in relation to a cozy beach fire and display charred pieces of varying degrees of charcoal and deepest black.  They are each, like us, unique in their shapes, forms and degrees of character.

I began with the first piece of wood and traversed across the page until six pieces have been completed.  Tomorrow is sure to see the addition of more pieces and perhaps the first indications of the ocean in the background.  I figure if I don't do well on the ocean, I can always turn it into a pile of sand!

Happy day!
Karen Anne Brady

Question ....

I am beginning work on a new illustration and I was wondering if I have done too many works in progress (WIP) on my blog?  Would you like me to post daily pictures of this piece, or wait until I have finished it, made it into a slideshow video and then post that?

Your comments will help me determine which way to go ....

In the meantime, here is the sketch I worked up on tracing paper ... this is a beach scene.  I want to work mostly on back ground in this illustration and this sketch is loaded with beach treasures and driftwood and lots of sand!

These are the two photos I am working from,  I like the way the little girl is positioned in the first one and the driftwood in the second photo has a lot of character.....

t

Here is the sketch I created using these two photos and then adding more "stuff" to the overall drawing ...

Thanks for your input on whether you prefer daily postings or a slide show video when this project is completed!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne Brady

The little girl is completed and I have decided an apt title for this piece is "Little Daydream Believer".    The shirt and hands were finished today as well as another technique I decided to try out for a deep black background. 

I applied a layer of intense black marker pen to the background, but found that it was a bit uneven ... so I grabbed my trusty old bottle of India Ink and a flat broad water color brush and applied two layers of ink over the marker pen.  That did the trick and achieved the deep black background I was hoping for.

 

Since I finished a bit early I also added the photos of the progress on this illustration to a slideshow I am working on that features my past few works in progress.  If you'd like to see the slideshow video it is now available on YouTube at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b2dQPrU3_M

Happy day!

Karen Anne Brady

PS  I am using techniques I have learned and am learning from the book "Colored Pencil Portraits - Step by Step" by Ann Kullberg and my other favorite book, by Alyona Nickelsen in her book "The Colored Pencil Painting Bible".

Two YouTube Slide Show Videos

Today I just wasn't quite in the mood to work on my little girl so I thought I'd try my hand at creating a slide show for presentation on YouTube.  I ended up creating two and thought I'd share them with you.

Zentangle Inspired Alphabet and Numerals
http://youtu.be/MNMgzTwF2vo

The 75 Day Sketch Challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_rna06OSG4

Well, at least I didn't waste the day and learned how to upload a slideshow onto YouTube!


Happy Day!
Karen Anne Brady