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Here's a charcoal drawing I recently completed.

Normally, Blogger uploads the photos to my page in reverse, so I uploaded with that in mind.  Huh!  Now it loaded them correctly.  Oh well, you get to see them from finish to start because I'm too lazy to correct it.


Finished drawing.

Close-up of neck, mane, and signature.

 Close up of muzzle.

Close-up of face.

Doing highlights with a kneaded eraser.

Lots of blending and layers.

Starting to look like a real horse.  LOL

Sketching in darks.

Preliminary sketch to make sure proportions are correct.

Thanks for looking!  One of these days, I'll figure this blog stuff out!

Imagination Celebration "What IF ... ?" Festival 2011

Wow, it's been waaaaaaay too long since my last post! Shame on me!

The good news is, I got promoted at my job and am officially full time. The bad news is, there's less time for drawing, painting, chalking, airbrushing, etc.!

BUT! I did manage to get the day off for the "What IF ... ?" Festival put on by Imagination Celebration. You might remember the butterfly chalk art I did last year? Well, I was flattered to be invited back this year, and was even given a "prime" spot! Woo hoo! The artists were actually sponsored this year, which means our chalk and lunches were provided at no cost to us, thanks to a generous donor! Yahoooooo!

Last year's theme was S.T.E.A.M.: Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics. Since Imatination Celebration sponsors The Butterflies & Friends Project, I wanted to incorporate all the topics into a butterfly: for Science, I did a microscope body; for Technology, I did a computer-chip-shaped wing (bottom); for Engineering, I did a cog-shaped flower; for Art, I did a realistic Monarch wing (top); and for Math, I did a mathematical compass for the antennae and math symbols on the computer chip wing:

This year, we were encouraged to ask our own "What IF ... ?" question. Our only limitation was our imagination! Since I've been on an under-the-sea phase lately, I decided to ask "What IF ... we could swim with the fish?" I sketched out a woman underwater with some fish and showed up early on the morning of the festival with chalk and supplies in hand.

When I arrived at my 4'x6' spot, I was tickled to find my spot reserved by an Official Name Placard (I guess that means I'm a real artist?) taped on the wall of the courthouse on Cascade Ave. facing the Pikes Peak Center where the Festival took place:

Nothing like an empty sidewalk as a blank canvas! In the top left corner of the photo below is this year's sketch, at the top center is last year's sketch, to the right of that is my portfolio and a picture of me in front of the ocean mural (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1349234376068.2052460.1387599568&l=e8e93edf04&type=1) I painted for Karen Linamen (www.karenlinamen.com). (sorry, Blogger isn't letting me do hyperlinks!!!)

After spreading out my sketch and reference photos, I sketched in the woman, reef stuff, and fish.

After coloring in the woman's hair:

After blending the chalk:

Her dress is purple, of course, but it looks blue in the pictures.

Working hard.

Finished the fish and coral, working on seaweed and other stuff.

Finished. Here's a close-up of the woman. And no, she's not Ariel, nor is she a mermaid!

Left side.

(sorry for the shadow, it's the lamppost)

Right side.

Posing with my finished chalk art. Took about 6 hours, start to finish.

View from the top.

Fish details.

No, it's not Nemo. It's just a Clown Fish!

That's it for now. Thanks for looking!

Butterfly Overload

Getting together with my Women of Worth Bible Study Sisters is always a joy. For this particular meeting, I wanted to surprise the girls with a cake to celebrate all our March birthdays, especially since I didn't get a chance to make one for Teresa two weeks earlier. This cake is a great example of all the things that can go wrong when you're a cake decorator. The first mishap was with the whipped cream frosting. My supplier changed brands on me, and I was so used to adding a cup of milk to the whipped cream that I was in automatic pilot when I added it to this batch. Unfortunately, this new brand does NOT call for milk, so the frosting was a mess. The best I could do was cover the cake with it and hope for the best. Luckily, I bought a can of vanilla frosting at the grocery store to do the flowers, so all was not lost. As much as I'd like to take credit for the idea for the sunflowers and butterflies, I cannot. I got them from my "Hello, Cupcake!" cookbook. (I also have book number two: "What's New, Cupcake?") The flower centers are Oreo cookies, and the petals are made from canned vanilla frosting with yellow and orange food coloring added. I also set aside some frosting to do ladybugs and leaves, but skipped due to running out of time. I made the butterflies out of candy wafers. It's always good to re-read the directions, which was mistake number two, because I couldn't figure out why the wafers were turning black and nasty after microwaving for 20 seconds. I bought some canned chocolate frosting to do the butterflies' bodies, but ran out of time for those. Luckily, I included the bodies when I was piping the wafers, so they turned out okay. To make the butterflies, I put about a cup of candy wafers into an unsealed Zip-loc bag, nuked for 10 seconds, kneaded the wafers, then repeated until melted. I snipped off a corner of the bag and freehanded the butterflies onto wax paper, using the tip of the bag to add texture. Then I quickly sprinkled some cake decors on the wings before they completely cooled. Within minutes, the butterflies had cooled enough to remove from the wax paper and put in a sealed container and into the fridge. (I made them the night before.) After cooling the cakes, I cut the bottom layer in half and added a chocolate pudding filling. Mistake number three was to not support the cake with dowel rods like I usually do (did I mention I was in a hurry?). Mistake number four was not having the cake level on the back seat, causing the entire cake to slide off its base, as the last several photos will attest. The cake was too tall to put the cover on it, but luckily I covered it loosely with plastic wrap so that the seat didn't get covered in frosting. I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality, but the first four photos were taken with my cell phone, which does not do well indoors as seen by the lines going across the pictures. I had forgotten my camera at Teresa's two weeks ago, so I took photos of my wrecked cake after I arrived. I make the batter using 2 boxes of Duncan Hines Devils Food cake mix (do not use instructions on box!), 2 cups of REAL mayonnaise (NOT LITE), 6 eggs, and 2 cups of water. Mix for about 60 seconds on medium speed, pour into 13x9 inch well-sprayed pan (actually, I use wax paper for the bottom and long sides and spray the short sides), and bake at 325 degrees for 65 minutes. Of course, you may need to adjust your time depending on your oven. I normally put aluminum foil on the rack below the cake because it WILL overflow (trim off the top to get the cake level before you invert it onto your cardboard/cake holder), but in this case, I poured enough into an additional 8" square pan for the upper layers that I didn't have any overflow. Here's the cake after adding the top two layers and covering with my flopped frosting. Here's after I added the flowers.

I hadn't intended to put this many butterflies on the cake, because there are obviously too many, but many guests were expected at this meeting and I didn't want to have to carry another container with all the leftover butterflies, so I stuck them all on the cake (hence the title "Butterfly Overload").

After arriving at Teresa's.

On the right side where all the green frosting is, is where the cake slid off. I pushed it back up before taking these.

Yeah, this is definitely an entry for Cake Wrecks! LOL Oh well, at least it TASTED good! And the butterflies were a hit!

P.S. Sorry about the paragraph breaks ... can't figure out how to fix them, and I'm too tired to care!

"Halo" Cake for David

My son Matt's roommate, David Shelley, recently moved back to NC to be with family, and Matt threw a surprise going away party for him. I made a "Halo" cake for him after one of his favorite video games. I tried to do World of Warcraft, but couldn't get a good picture that would translate into whipped cream frosting, so I went with a character from Halo instead. Ever the procrastinator, I decided to order a plain cake from King Soopers to save time. This is what I got for $13.99. Um, yeah, if I hadn't been in such a hurry, I would've given it back and told them, "You call this a professional cake? Forget it!" I couldn't believe how sloppy the frosting job was and all the crumbs that showed through! Look at all that frosting smeared on the cardboard! The icing was VERY thin, too! What a joke! So, I added some more frosting, smoothed it out, and wiped all the mess off the cardboard. Now THIS is how you do it!

I used a toothpick to sketch in the gunman.

And ... because I was in such a hurry, I don't have "during" photos! LOL But at least you get to see how it turned out.

The gunman was semi 3-dimensional after I built up the layers of frosting.

Here's my son Matt on the left and his friend David on the right. We miss you already, Dave!

"Run Like the Wind"

Recently completed a charcoal drawing of a horse for my friend Teresa's birthday. This is the second birthday drawing I've done for this horse lover. Click here to see the first drawing, "A Mother's Love," I did last year. Not much to say about the process other than my usual "lots of layers, blending and shading," so I'll let the progress pictures speak for me.

Yeah, I think she liked it! Happy Birthday, Teresa!