Hunk the Basset Hound custom hand drawn portrait - featured

Custom Basset Hound portrait

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“Hunk” 8×10 colored pencil, watercolor, and gouache on watercolor paper I had a few projects come up toward the end of the summer that kept be really busy with non-landscape painting — including this custom portrait drawing of Hunk the Basset Hound. I fell head-over-heels for Hunk! The way his mom described his personality as an irresistibly lovable tyrant definitely reminded me of our own dogs. And I was particularly smitten with his long hound face and ears because of our Dachshund, Bosco. Hunk’s mom provided the idea for the tilted crown (inspired by a Biggie Smalls photo with the…

A watercolor bike portrait commission

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Watercolor portrait of a Raleigh Revere 1 women’s road bike A few months ago, after I mentioned that I’m focusing on making more art to my mother-in-law, she asked me to make a portrait of her bike. She lives in the midwest and rides as much as she can in the summer when the weather is nice. So she wanted a drawing of it to look at in the winter, when it’s far too cold and snowy to ride, and imagine a nice summer day out on the trails. I thought watercolor would be a nice medium for the project…

Mug illustration troubles

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I set an intention to make this morning’s gouache mug study more illustrative in style and not worry so much about value accuracy. I also intended to mix up a nice grey color to paint with. Neither of these things went very well. I’m aware of feeling off and grumpy this morning — maybe that had an influence in my sketchbook. The first sketch of the outlined mug went OK (despite the color that was way off from my goal). I like the simplicity of it and the hatching pattern on the surface. The larger, second mug was stickier. I…

Trying out my new bottle of Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold Fluid Acrylic

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Artists seem to be huge fans of the Golden Fluid Acrylic in Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold so I decided to buy a small bottle and see what all the chatter was about. This is the first thing I’ve painted with it and I’m impressed with the color of it! This image may be a little more intense than in real life, but it is a really cool color. I started this illustration by painting the main wildflower shapes in Quin Gold on a 6×6 sheet of Fabriano Studio watercolor paper that was coated with acrylic gesso. After letting the flower…