Happy Halloween!

Here's a new painting just in time for Halloween!
It's the time of year for scaring, sharing, costumes, and candies!

My plans for this weekend: Watch something fun and spooky, eat things with pumpkin in them, and hand out sweets to all the cute little witches and devils of the neighborhood. I'm so looking forward to all the costumes! Happy Halloween 2010!

The Telephone Series

Looks a bit familiar, doesn't it?

It's the third and final part of the Telephone series!
I'd been meaning to make a third piece from the very beginning, while working on the first and second parts of the series, over 2 years ago. I put the project off to the side for the longest time, but now it's here and finally, the Telephone series is complete:

Secrets, Telephone, Tangle.



It's strange to think that this is really the only sequential series of paintings in my entire portfolio... Perhaps there will be more in the future, who knows.

Looking at the three together, there's a small but noticeable difference in style over the years, though the basics of my sensibilities and style have not much changed. I tried to match the third piece to the original two, but little differences in the faces in particular came up that I didn't noticed until the end. I also had to do a bit of digital color correcting after I scanned it in, as I'm apparently a lot heavier handed with my colors than I used to be. Differences and all though, I am thrilled. I feel a nice sense of accomplishment now that this series is complete.

I love it, I love it, I love it.

Lads with Long Locks

Have a look at these lads with their long luxurious locks!

This neatbook page has been coming around little by little for ages-- a botched and dirty free-style watercolor page that I adopted as a place for mindless doodling of tons of gloriously flowing hair.

So, I went the whole month of July with out updating this blog, but not for lack of art-ing. July was pretty great: There was the starting of a full time temp job, a house guest, an amusement park trip, my birthday, and various other fun distractions. Because of all that goodness, I have just plain been neglecting the internet. I am working on so many things at once right now so it may be some time before I have anything finished to post, but I will attempt to update here more often.

Up next (in a few short moments, actually), a new painting to finish an old series. Stick around.

Mimes and Rainbows + Owls and Flowers

I wanted to dabble a bit again in digital coloring, and of course this is what I come up with. Mimes Upon a Rainbow.

I love mimes and for some time I've been telling myself "Nancy, if you insist upon drawing mimes, at least have them expressively miming some sort of action." Obviously that has yet to happen. I consider mime to be a highly under-appreciated art form, and I'd like to show my appreciation appropriately, yet I always find myself drawing them as passive and wistful romantics... probably something to do with the lack of color and speech. Perhaps next time will be different, but for now I give you these calm and slightly sultry creatures to look at.

And here is another somewhat-sultry-eyed,  digital, candy-colored confection for you, Owls Among Flowers.



Birds and flowers...two more things that I can't helping drawing over and over! This is actually taken from an old sketchbook page of aimless doodles in black rollerball pen. Seemed like it might be a nice drawing to practice digital coloring on, and here we are. I actually started and nearly finished this one months ago and then forgot about it for some time.

For anyone interested in seeing a simplified version of the process behind things, I've created a new set on flickr called Process: Sketch to Final. I think it will be a fun thing to update from time to time, so please do have a look!

Here's today's Sketch to Final:




Visit the Flickr page for a larger view and description, yes?

That's all for tonight's middle-of-the-night post. Off to bed I go!

Circus Folk No.2

 More circus characters, I couldn't resist!