A Sammy Jr. portrait

This little fellow was one of my "babies"- all grown up now. He looks almost like his daddy, just in a new color- especially his body- it is a carbon copy of my Sammie who died before he was born (the baby!) The folks who bought him didn't know about Daddy, nor his name. I was SHOCKED when they emailed "hello from Sammy"!!! Just a different spelling. Gave me goose bumps.

At any rate, they've decided to have his portrait done, so I've been working away at it. I'm loving every minute I spend with this special boy.

This was the pose they chose. I had gone over and photographed him one day before it got too cold.




Here's an "in progress" photo.

I can't believe the holidays are upon us! Time to get ready for the Christmas season. I hope it's a wonderful one for all my readers. :-)

The Latest Minis

I've been working on a couple of very dark background pieces, hoping to bring out the light on these white birds. I find working this way intriguing.

I've also been working on a couple of scratch art miniatures.

This one has been completed and will soon be going off to a show.
Now for the hard part- titles!

While I seal the pelican carving I started a new painting. Here's a WIP photo from last night and today. I'm hoping to get this finished before next Tues. with the holiday coming up. I know that's going to cut into painting time. This is as usual, a miniature, done in acrylic. The reference was taken on our recent trip to Louisiana when we were out boating with friends. This fellow was one of the few who stayed put as we passed. We decided he was a "ham" and was posing for the camera. ;-)

Latest mini- Field Work

I have been working on this one all week. Just finished a little while ago. This one is acrylic on board. 3"x5". I love the farm scenes- they're such a calm and "summer" thing.

Duck, Duck, Goose- completed

Just finished the last bits of touch ups this afternoon. These fellows were alot of fun to paint. This piece is done in acrylics, the ducks and geese were done mainly with the new interference acrylics. I do believe I will like them for certain applications.

Here is a close up of a couple of the fellas...
This piece is 3"x5". Traditional miniature.

Updated Works In Progress

Last week was a total wash as far as getting anything done with having my mom here to take care of and this week has been almost as bad. I tried to work some on the turtles last week- the first photo of it was where it was previous to last weeks work.


I had a hard time trying to get the color corrected as you can see. I think the true color is "somewhere in between" these, although I believe it is closer to the bottom one. I have the sun coming in the window- directly in my eyes. Evening seems to be the only time I really have to do this sort of thing and it's always such a bad time to try and see the color.


I was able to do some painting today. When I go down to the studio I have hopes of getting further than I ever do. Today was no exception. I spent alot more time down there than it looks!!! These miniatures take alot of time to get them "right".
I've been "fighting" with that goose all afternoon, and now the duck has joined the fray! Persistence hopefully will pay off and I'll get them the way I want them!

Richeson 75 Small Works and Miniatures Show

I am very happy to announce that I won second place with my harpy eagle painting- which I believe is a $500 gift certificate for art supplies from Richeson. What an honor and how lucky am I?! I tried to put the announcement here but can't figure out how, so just have a bit of the wording pertaining to the show and my piece.
I can't seem to pull up the harpy photo- for some reason it comes up as other pieces. So you'll just have to go to my website and look in the miniature paintings category, the website for Richeson 75 show or look at my older blogs with the harpy on them. Sorry for the inconvience. I have my website link to the right- you can just link to that, then go into the miniature paintings to see the harpy eagle.

"Awards Jurors for this competition were Terry Howell Stanley, PSA, Richeson 75 Director; Julie Jilek, Richeson Gallery Director, and award winning Artist & Instructor Jeffrey Hargreaves. We are proud to announce the winners of the Richeson 75Small Works 2010 competition!

Second Place: Non-Oils is "Harpy Eagle" by Carol Andre. "This painting is only
3.5"x2.5" and the lifelike qualities of this miniature bird portrait are amazing."

Junior and Pugsley WIP

Here they are after a very frustrating day of painting on them. Had planned to do it in pastels. No go. So I had to restart and rethink. Now in acrylic! Much color adjustment on Junior (the tan one)... Pugsley should hopefully go better, even tho he's black he was nice and shiny and all his lovely folds and wrinkles and bumps stand out. Junior just bleached and faded out. I put 2 different photos together to get this piece the way I wanted. I took a ton of photos to try and get just the right one!