Autumn Scene ~ color study

Autumn Scene is a temporary working title until I see how this goes. I just completed this color study with Prismacolor colored pencils on a thumbnail sketch, roughly 4 1/2" x 1 1/2".  I want it to be full of vibrant, unexpected Fall colors and blowing leaves. Lots of windswept action. I'm using a double complimentary palette here...yellows and violets with oranges and blues. Because these colors (yellows/oranges) and (violets/blues) are analogous, it should work. I want one 'pop' color. Not quite sure what that will be yet. Possibly turquoise or teal. Something blue-ish and vibrant.      

Garlic ~ thumbnail sketches

I've been on a bit of a hiatus. This winter has been rough on my lungs and I really haven't been in a very creative mood as a result. I finally bucked up and drew these simple thumbnail sketches the other night. I'm thinking of a small, garlic themed series. I've painted a garlic braid (ristra) before but I've never painted the scapes. When the scapes first appeared in my garlic patch I was quite enamored with them. For those that aren't familiar, they are the stems and flower buds of hardneck garlic and they look like graceful, long necked birds. They appear almost overnight and begin to coil around in the most amazing way. I haven't decided what medium I'd like to use yet. I'm thinking pen and wash. 

BTW, I'm happy to report the client loved the portrait (JUGGS). Yes! I found out later that this is his 40th anniversary gift to his wife. And here I thought it was for Valentines Day. I'm kinda glad I found out about the anniversary after the fact. It would've added that much more pressure.      

Frog Pond~Starting Again

My new comp thumbnail sketch. I will probably change the proportions of the various elements when I enlarge it.

This time I decided to focus on only one frog and take more care with the development of it. I want to include more detail too, so the frog will stand out more. I also came up with a different composition. I'm shooting for a more underwater atmosphere..kind of a frog's eye view of things beneath a pond. Zhen painted something similar and I quite liked it.


The quandary is....how do I get a greater amount of detail on my frog and stay with a gessoed surface? My solution is to only partially coat my paper with the gesso while saving the frog itself under frisket film. It should work but time will tell.