My RRC Photo is in a Guide!

I have a Flickr account that I put some of my hiking trail pics on, specifically my Red Rock Canyon trail pics. There's not a lot there, just some of the highlights. Well, about a month ago I got an email from Schmap Guide editor indicating that one of my RRC photos was being considered for inclusion in the new Las Vegas activity guide! I thought, COOL! Now, I'm not a photographer by any means but I do try to follow basic composition guidelines just as when I'm putting a painting together.

Today I got the conformation email that the photo that was being considered has been accepted and is now a part of the 2009 Schmap Las Vegas guide, under outdoor activities, hiking. Now, I know it's not a big deal really, like the photo is in Time magazine or something, but I still think it's a nice little thing to have happened!

Schmap Guide has included a widget for me to put here so there's a direct link to that aspect of the guide. Take a look over on the side bar and check it out. My photo credit is labeled "hosslass".

Glad someone enjoys the photos of Red Rock Canyon too!!

Eagle Trio Sketches and Painting

I know I alluded in an earlier post about an eagle themed painting I was going to do. Well, it's finished and made into a beaded bookmark that's available in my Etsy and Artfire shops. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how the finished product looks. This post will be about the painting process though, just my thoughts about how this miniature painting came about.

I have in mind for a series of bookmarks of southwest wildlife animals, such as eagles, cougars and bears to start. Eagles and birds of prey have always been a fascinating subject for me so I chose eagles to start. In researching my reference photos, I decided on a collage of three scenes, a young eagle bust, an eagle in flight, and an adult eagle bust. So I had the reference pics chosen and then set out to make tonal drawings and sketches. Since I don't have a lot of experience painting birds, the tonal sketches will help give a better guideline of where to push the dark values, the mid range values and light values. I sketched the eagles freehand from the reference pics as I need a very small size to fit on the bookmark size paper. Sure, I could have manipulated the reference pic copies to a small enough size and then just traced the outline, however, I wanted to work on my artistic skills and chose the long tedious way. And yes, my eraser got a good work out but I learned so much in the process.

The page of sketches:

Compiling this type of composition took some math skills, which I sorely have struggled with all my life (I'm also slightly dyslectic). It took some time to get the balance just right and then all the resizing of the sketches of the birds. I used the eagle eye as the balance reference, draw the eye first and then balance the rest of the bird around the eye. Seemed to me to be the logical choice of where to start! Now what gave me the most grief was getting the beaks curved and positioned just right!! I never knew . So I wound up breaking the beaks down to a series of stacked blocks to give me a better perspective of attaining the three dimensional look. You can see that in the lower right hand bust sketch. My eraser got the most workout here!

Pics of the finished sketches:

Once the sketches and composition was done now onto the actual painting! Doing the sketches gave me a great base to work from and helped me tweak some changes as I was doing the painting. I used mostly Faber Castell watercolor pencils, they have great color and flow with water, and some creata color and derwents brand pencils too. Unfortunately I did not keep notes or pics of my painting process so I don't have them to show here. So that's a project for the next wildlife painting! Here is the finished product with the sketch reference:

This was a wonderful learning process, it may have taken me a while, but when you insists on learning at your own pace, that's what happens!

Valentines Day

Seems the older I get, the less I get excited about holidays. They usually mean to me now "gee, more extra work and pretend to like it...". I should be happy about Valentines, I am so blessed to have my Joe with me for about 16 years, pretty good record now days!!

I did at least make a couple of Valentine tags for my shops. I came up with the designs in one afternoon and then put them together over the next day or two. And then got them listed on Etsy and Artfire about 10 days before today. While the tags have had a bit of views, no sales, unless someone rushes in today! I guess after today, I'll take them off the stores and stash them with the unsold Christmas tags I did last year.

Actually have an Etsy meeting today with my Ft. Worth mini team of the Etsy Texas Crafters. And it's going to be at Central Market on Hulen. That's going to work out great, because I can then pick up some prepared food for our Valentine's dinner tonight. Joe will be home late from work and we'll both be too tired to dress up and find our way through the crowds at the local resturants. Our Etsy meeting will talk more about getting a booth at a craft fair /flea market set up at a monthly local trade days, which I'm interested in. Gotta keep the ideas flowing!

Happy Valentine's Day, I am grateful for true love whenever it happens!

New Trail Adventures

I was able to take a solo trip out west in January, back to Las Vegas. Besides some much needed r&r my main reason for going was to get back out on the Red Rock trails I love so much! So I planned for weeks before the trip which trail I was going to tackle. A big help for me was this fantastic Red Rock trail hiking site, www.birdandhike.com . Finally, my trip came and I headed out to Red Rock around 8:30 AM. Drove on the Scenic Drive about 7.5 miles to the Willow Springs Picnic area where one of the trailheads started. My trail quest for the day was the White Rock Hill Loop. While I saw the trailmarkers that said the trail was rated "difficult", esp. the direction I was starting. Of course, I thought, "well, how difficult could it be?". I finished the trail four and half hours later and six and half miles underfoot, I understood the "difficult" rating!!

But the views and the time out in the backcountry was so, so worth it!!! I am so hooked, I can hardly wait to get back to trek another trail. So now it's time to share all the pics I took. A lot of pics were taken during my rest periods, when my thighs were screaming that I would be in some serious trouble if I kept going without a break, mainly through the uphill portions! This trail was mostly either uphill or downhill, with a few flat areas just enough to give enough rest to keep going!

Pics are in the slideshow on the right side!

Merry Christmas Eve! Special Paintings for Family

Like most folks, these last couple of weeks have been really hectic for me. I didn't even manage to send out Christmas cards this year, *sigh*, so sorry I did that. However I think I have redeemed myself with the latest art project completed! I wanted to make something different for my nieces and nephews this year. I normally take the easy way out and just get gift cards to WalMart or Target, which for the most part I did this year again. However, I decided to present the cards in a gift of their own, a "gift within a gift" if you will.

The idea came to me to make small paper decorated cowboy boot sleeves with a themed card that fit inside. I made three pair that I put up for sale in my Etsy shop but did not sell. Again, *sigh* (oh well, there's always next year!). So I decided, why not make a larger size that a regular gift card could slip inside? And, why not decorate it with a small painting of an individuals likes? And the gift card boots were on their way to being created!

So the next step was to discretely find out what each of my nieces and nephews enjoyed and then create a representative painting. Luckily, through the help of my sisters they directed me to what I should look for. My oldest nephew enjoys fishing, the other nephew enjoys dragons (which I remembered from his wedding theme), two nieces enjoy wine and one niece enjoys cooking. With this info, I went to a few websites I use for reference pictures and was able to find suitable photos to use. I was a little stuck for the cooking reference, so I used a collage of different photos to come up with a "cooking" theme. I hope my niece "gets" it and doesn't think I'm the strange old aunt! And here are the results:

Each boot shank is large enough to slip in a regular size gift card with a small envelope. I hope they keep these boots as a keepsake. I am going to tell them that if they just want the gift card and not the boot, I'll take the boot back! (I put a lot of effort into these). I also personalized each boot on the back with their name and the year. But these guys are all old enough to be appreciative of a family member's efforts just for them. It was fun and good artistic exercise for me, creating miniature paintings in still life, fantasy and realistic styles.

Today is the busiest day of the month for me but I never forget why Christmas day is here for us no matter how tired or busy I get. Hallelujah, He is born!

Catching Time

As usual I let my blog time slip away. Thanksgiving came and went, very good, good meet with the family, ate too much great food and drove too far. But hey, it's all worth it in the end.

I've got some art projects in the fire, so to speak. I'm hoping to do a WIP on these. I've decided to do a western wildlife bookmark painting series, focusing on three magnificent creatures: Eagle, Bear and Cougar. I plan on creating one animal montage on each bookmark. Somehow the need came to me about painting something other than horses. It's good practice and a good challenge.

(one of my reference pics for the next project, copyright free and public domain)

Another activity I've become involved in is my local Etsy group Ft. Worth chapter of Etsy Texas Crafters. Recently there was a meeting in west Ft. Worth where I met some fine and excited artist and crafters. It was a small turnout, but I felt like a pioneer of sorts. I really enjoyed the folks who did turn out and we all are in agreement of helping to support one another in our Etsy endeavours!!! One gentleman was kind enough to blog about our meeting and took some wonderful pictures! Check out the blog here: First Ft. Worth Etsy Meeting

Hopefully, I can get back to working on my art, this week has been very busy at work! One day, one day.......

Continuing with the Etsy shop promotions

Just a quick note, at least to keep the blog current! Here are the list of more etsy shops up for promotion highlighted by www.neatostuff.com.

Thursday- www.purpledaisyjewelry.etsy.com

Friday- www.maryzoom.etsy.com

Saturday- www.threadedgoodness.etsy.com

Sunday- www.uniquegarden.etsy.com

I feel so strongly about supporting individual artisans on Etsy. There is something so unique about one of a kind handmade items. Plus it's nice to know that my gift was not made by child labor in a third world country!!

I should get another batch of shops to promote next week. I am working on some real unique gift cards for my Etsy shop, hopefully I will get those all listed this week. I'm starting to feel the crunch ! More thoughts next time!