GNEW YEARS GNOME 2013

Every year for the past several years I have been doing a little gnome painting, generally in watercolours, the tradition started out as a seasonal image to put in a frame that hung in our entry room. For the Gnew Year I would do a Gnome, Valentines day would get a little cupid or cheruby thing, St Pats would get a leprechaun and so on.

I still do the Leprechauns, but they are for a charity auction for the local St patty' Party, that started about 10 years ago, but will blog on that come closer to March 17th.......

Back to the Gnew Years Gnome...... usually the image is sparked by something that has gone on in the past year and I will some how incorporate it into the them of the image. This year was honestly no different. 

A friend of mine, Heidi, had made a comment about her pre-lit tree only being half lit, and with that it sparked the memory of my dad ( he passed 3 years ago in December,very close to the date she posted )   and Christmas. When we would be putting the lights on the tree, it was his job, and mine as helper, to string them, we would stretch themout along the living room floor and he would go thru bulb by bulb and check the connections making sure there were no shorts or bad wires. Some younger folks might not realize that the wiring on older lights was not as efficient as it is now.....

Anyway, Heidi, thank you for the friendship over the past few years and the memory.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!!

 

SCROOGED

DARKE HUNTS

Here is a little bin of fun in a video format of me starting on the pencils for one of the illustrations to the new book project, as you will see it is in real time so what you see is what actually came out and how long it took to get that far.

On a sad note, if I post any more videos, there will be no sound. This really sort of sux since I like loud music when I work, but I keep getting flagged for the music when I upload it to youtube, and as an artist I don't want to be in a copyright violation, even tho I do post and acknowledge who I am listening to. In this clip you will hear a bit of Dan Baird, from his album Buffalo Nickel  and now rockin the hell out of us with great tunes in HOMEMADE SIN!!

After about 40 seconds the sound goes off .......... ya'll missed out on a great song

DOODLE BOOK COVERS

I had seen a post a while back from James Gurney over on his blog the GURNEY JOURNEY about his sketch books and that he was doing little lettering and painting things on the covers, the post was about lettering or sign painting, I am going to post a link as soon as I can find it..........but after seeing the post, I thought " WOW!! what a great idea " and said to myself " Tracy, you should do something on the fronts of your doodlebooks so that you can sort of tell one black book from another "

Well some time went by, and with that still in the back of my mind, I bought a little acrylic paint set, and sat down with my latest book and since I am in a Barsoomian mood and have been doing a lot of Mars concept pieces, I decided to paint a Banth on the cover. 

The set I bought came in a little plastic case, and I can use the inside cover of the lid as a palette, and the colours are pretty much the same as more core group that I use daily in my oils, so all was a go. 

I have to say that just sitting there in the living room watching the tele and leisurely putting the paint down on this was a total joy, no pressures, no deadline just sort of painting to be painting. 

PALETTE CLEANSE

Not too far back I said that sometimes my favourite part of painting is cleaning off the palette............

Well here is a small example of what I mean:

I did this yesterday morning mainly in one sitting, just playing. Now you may ask yourself what does this have to do with cleaning off your palette, well he was done from paint left over from a couple of days of paint on my palette from another painting that I am working on..........as some of the paint was still viable and wet, I just sketched the face out onto a boar and then started to paint him in with that paint before I scraped down and started back into the other image.   A cleansing of the palette as it were, and not wasting of paint.

Could I go back in and tighten things up more and turn it into a "finished piece, sure I can tighten him up, but for me he is finished, served his purpose and was a good exercise, and to be totally honest, I like him as is.

So the next time you have to scrape down, maybe see if you can lay some more paint down and just play a bit..........it is fun, and sometimes you get something out of it as well besides a clean palette.

STORY BOARDS ...HATMAN 3

Just recently a friend of mine got in touch with me about a project he was working on and asked me if I could lend a bit of a hand...the answer of course was yes.


He was working on a film project of his own production HATMAN and on the 3rd installment and wanted to know if I could story board it to help with shots and angles and such.storyboarding.... so we sat down one day in Studio B ( the porch ) and discussed the project and as we talked I doodled out the scenes he had scripted out.

After getting the initial pages down, over the next few days I sat down and redrew the panels with a little more finish to them as well as change the format from vertical..which is what I am used to doing mostly illustration.... to horizontal  fro more of a film look so that he could plan his shots a bit better and have it closer to the screen image.

 

Story boards are fun and quite similar to comic work. They can be as simple as you would like or s complex and complete..........I guess it all really depends on who you are working with and what they want in all honesty. Black and White or colour  as well.

I personally cannot wait to see the finished production  and had so much fun doing these, I hope it goes on and I get to do more!!! Here is part 2 of Hatman for you to see...........

 

BOWLING PIN-UPS

For some reason these gals just popped into my head, and had to get them out. They will be done in watercolour and ready for viewing soon.

POT ( O' GOLD ) PARTY

Every year I do one of these for our local St Patricks Day Festival and party....here is this years

HAPPY GNEW YEAR

Happy New Years everybody, I look forward to this coming year with more hope and happiness than the past year, and not as much as the next!! Lots of projects in the works and can't wait to post um here for those of you who come by to see them.

As I have done every year for the past few years.........here is this years Gnew Years Gnome, he is a bit early. I have usually done these on New Years day, but now I can relax and enjoy it more with my family.

Can't wait to see ya'll in 2012

HIPPIE CHICK PIN-UPS

It all started with the song "Downtown", a young lady dressed in the current nuvo-hippy attire, and what is in my opinion not a very nice smelling substance called patchouli. Whether you like the aroma or not................it set my mind running because of the coincidence of time. I have Petula Clark singing a wonderful song. Downtown, and this rather attractive yet foul smelling young woman next to me.

Next thing I knew I did a quick watercolour of ...............

PATCHOULI CLARK

 .... and yes the image is somewhat based on the young nameless woman......

After the incident the names and images started to come to me and I couldn't stop, I started to write them down and do the paintings when I wanted........they were there and it really seemed like the thing to be doing at the time. 

So let me introduce to you a few more of the women that have come to me since the incident:

AMBER WAVES

SUMMER RAYNE

LORA BUSCHE

There are even little histories behind some of the names, like Amber Waves is a mid-Western girl  who loves to walk barefoot in the fields of grass, Ms. Busche is a natural girl who enjoys dancing at parties and enjoys life as it comes...............this is all pretty scary when you think about it, but I have honestly come to terms with these things and accept them as they pop into my head.

I have a file somewhere labeled " NAUGHTY BITS", that has more images that are not as tame as these, and one day I will get around to posting a few of them.

Any how, this is just a wee bit of what goes on in my mind as I relax and let the ideas flow. Most of these come out at night as I sit and watch t.v. before going to bed. I think this is why I don't really dream all that much, or have nightmares.......... I take care of it before hand, and allow myself the opportunity to just sleep.