I've been reading blogs for inspiration

Like "Colour Me Happy" by Maria Killam. Very inspiring; shows this novice what a REAL blog should look like!

Anyway, lately I've been doing computer artwork, particularly one Christmas card, one collage, and one computer portrait of Greta Garbo. (She has my favorite all-time face.) I'll admit it, the Christmas card design is not entirely original. I took a silhouette of a Christmas tree, filled it with stars, and added some emanating rays and a beautiful old-world font. This is how it turned out, and it is of course for sale at cafepress.com/feelgoodgraphix.

I was also noodling around on some of the older card designs, and I think I really improved them. My original Halloween card was a photo of a lamppost with a spider web hanging from it in appropriately spooky fashion, which struck me as ... unfinished. So I superimposed a pumpkin stem on top of the lamppost, which made the whole design MUCH more interesting. Here's the original:

 and here's the improvement:

What do you think?

Also, just in time for Valentine's Day, I messed around with my "Love is Always Right" design, and made it into a true Valentine. I took what used to be a static, right-angled design and made it much more dynamic and swingy with a few swipes of the virtual eraser tool. Here's the revamped version of that card:

Previously the red background was in a rectangular border, and the text area in white was rectangular also. Just too many rectangles! I swapped the rectangles for hearts and now it sparkles (partly because I also added ... sparkles.)

Hey, I also made a calendar! They have a calendar-making feature over at CafePress, so I rounded up 12 of my better photos and made a calendar! I'm all excited. Here's the cover of the calendar, along with a link to where you can see all the pages:

www.cafepress.com/feelgoodgraphix

Oh, and then there's Greta. Good old Greta, with the most perfect face ever to gaze out from a movie screen. I took an old studio portrait of her, in black and white of course, and jazzed her up to look like the Snow Queen from a Tchaikovsky ballet. Here's the original:

 You've seen this one, right?




And here's my Snow Queen version:

She's not available for sale right now. (But I think she could be because that photo's gotta be in the public domain, right?) But she graces my bathroom mirror now, bestowing sparkly goodwill to all who brush their teeth before her.

Second Commission

And this one was a double subject. So while I am supposed to charge $80 for 2 subjects, since the customer was my mother, I only charged $60. (I REALLY needed the money, folks.)

So I asked the customer, my mom, who she wanted a portrait of, and she said she wanted me to draw my dad, with his favorite dog, Rags. How old should Dad be? Around 50. (He's now 87.) Rags was an apricot-colored cockapoo who was very smart, very obedient, and very tuned in to my dad. So, okay. I'll go through the old photos and find what I need. Well, after going through what seemed like hundreds of photos, I found the perfect photo: my dad, at 50, holding Rags up to the camera. Say cheese, Rags.

So here's the original photo of my dad and his beloved Rags:

And my pencil version:

I like it. It captures his "my dad"-ness. And Rags' "rag-ness."

And, as always, if you want one of your own, just go to:
http://www.artfire.com/users/KatesPencilPortraits
Or just click here:

KatesPencilPortraits

Sell Handmade

Then I Got a Commission!!

Omygawd! I was very excited. A friend I used to work with decided he wanted a portrait of his niece, photographed as she was gazing through a telescope, with light streaming over her through a window. "Like Vermeer," my friend said. Well, I'm not quite up to that standard, so it'll be "like Kate," for better or worse.

I've recently refined my portrait technique, after years of hit-or-miss likenesses, off-kilter ratios and not quite right angles. Yes, I trace them first. I admit it. I get out my lightbox, print out the original photo from my computer at the appropriate size, and trace around the periphery of the face, with marks for placement of the eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and hairline. Then I turn off the lightbox, and fill in the features and the shading. So I'm confident that I can turn out a good portrait of anybody.

Here's the original of my friend's niece Alexandra:

And here's the pencil version:

What do you think? My friend is happy with it (he said he cherishes it, aww) so all is well. Plus I made $40!

Want a portrait of your own? Check out my BRAND-NEW shop on ArtFire at
http://www.artfire.com/users/KatesPencilPortraits

It's a sweet way to remember someone you love, and supports a worthy cottage industry (me.)