Two updates!

First off, "It's Not a Phase" is currently being exhibited (through April 26th) at Woman Made Gallery.  It's a lovely exhibit with some really fantastic pieces, and astonishingly enough, I was the recipient of 4th prize (honorable mention)!

Secondly, I am featured on Chicago Contemporary Figurative Art!

Serious woah.

In other news, I keep meaning to take a pic of progress on the "Leviathan Queen", but never remember until late at night when the lighting is no good!  Sorry about that.

Ok, so UPDATE. "Leviathan Queen" is being...extremely difficult.  Basically, if I hadn't taken those couple months off where I did a bunch of digital, this piece would already be done--it would have been ok, not great, but ok.  Now that I've come back to it, though, with new knowledge, I just can't get past the errors and keep seeing things wrong with it.  I need to stop repainting stuff and just finish it already!

On the bright side, I stretched a new canvas and am looking forward to beginning a new oil in one of my favorite themes--fairy tale subversion. This time: Rapunzel.

Also, took some photos a few weeks ago--I want to do a very realist still life.  I figure there's a lot I could learn from that.

To keep me going through my trials with "Leviathan Queen", I've painted two mini paintings--lots of fun!  Thinking I might try to sell them for $15 apiece on Etsy.

Finally, a bit of digital--my next panel of "Origin".  Looking back at the third panel, me thinks it may be a good idea to repaint that with a looser style like this one.  This panel still needs work, though, so I'll have another whack at it in a couple days.

Stay tuned!

So, I heard about the free "Winter Weekdays" at the Art Institute of Chicago a bit late, but once I had, I went during my lunch break everyday!  Here are 5 lunch breaks worth of sketches of my favorite sculpture:

Lunch Break Sketch - Day 1

Lunch Break Sketch - Day 2

Lunch Break Sketch - Day 3

Lunch Break Sketch - Days 4 & 5

I love drawing this sculpture--she is so peaceful-looking.  Is my mind playing tricks on me, or did each sketch get a wee bit better with each attempt?  It did become easier to sketch out more of her body at a quicker pace; with the first sketch, I immediately wanted to draw her face, but the next day I realized that was silly because I need to work on figure drawing more than anything else!

Tried my hand at some fan art for an online challenge/contest.  Learned quite a bit in the process, but it was terribly humbling to see the other submissions! o_O

Final



Thumbnail Sketches

Process

...and now you know what a chinchilla, an owl and a little girl have in common: they all love My Neighbor Totoro!

Worked all day on "Leviathan Queen"!  See below for a detail...I love working in oil after several days of digital.

Finished this last night--(photo) study of my sister as a toddler.  I didn't quite manage to capture her likeness! :\

Upcoming: how a toddler, an owl and a chinchilla all come together!  Hopefully...

And then I really need to get back to the next panel of "Origin" (still working on "Leviathan Queen", too)!

 Chinchilla (photo) study

Great horned owl (photo) study

So...you may be wondering what a chinchilla and a great horned owl have in common.  Well, I can't tell you just yet, but you'll find out soon! ;)