portrait – Shawland

February 10, 2017February 10, 2017

Miniature Pet Paintings

Every once in a while I get in to painting miniatures, as you may know. I love the idea of having a small image of someone/thing you love that you can carry around with you. Well, I painted a mini of my little buddy Mer looking grumpy. I took it along with me to Scotland and it was an excellent totem and I think it brought us good luck, along with plenty of heather.

Later I decided to paint his friend at the time, Zeebee. I thought that they would go along well with my pissed-off-settler portraits; Mer would be a grumpy settler and Zeebee would be nobly hopeful.

The Mer and Zeebee were a big hit, which prompted my aunt to request portraits of her furry family members too.

It was actually more of a struggle than I expected to paint at someone else’s request, and with a deadline! I managed to finish them all and they were met with great pleasure. The following are some process pictures and the final outcome.

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July 14, 2015July 14, 2015

Mini Settler Portaits

This summer and the last two I have spent working at Lang Pioneer Village. Sometimes when working in a historic village, you take a selfie. Sometimes when you are going through the kindling bin you find a piece of wood that makes you think of a project. This year the bin had a bunch of pieces that had been the ends of cedar shingles. As I was collecting kindling, I came across some of these ends which told me that they needed to have mini portraits painted on them. I knew I had a pissed-off pioneer selfie from the year before, and I felt that this was a good place to start.

After finishing, I added a frame made from a branch that had fallen from my friend, the silver maple. I split the branch and sawed it up i to appropriate pieces, hot glued them to my mini.

Later, I decided that it would be a good idea to make a companion portrait. Curtis had been looking like a stern settler lately, so I found a picture of him from my cousin’s wedding and painted a Curtis to match.

I think that the Curtis turned out a little better. The mini me was the first mini portrait I had painted in a long time and that bit of practice made a big difference for the outcome of the Curtis as well as sped up the process. Both are wonky, but I think it gives them a certain charm…

May 2, 2014May 4, 2014

Out of turn post

I’m posting early, because Sammi is working away at her sweater for her next post and I don’t want her to rush too much. So it is me this week instead of her.

Well here is a painting. I painted it a couple of years ago at John Climenhage‘s studio over the shwarma place. I was having one of those periods where I felt like I should be painting, but couldn’t think of what to paint (where right now I have lots of ideas as to what to paint, but can’t get myself to paint). John had a book of photos taken during the Afghan war and suggested I paint something from it. I felt a little uncomfortable painting from someone else’s photo at the time, but sometimes you (I) need to get over stuff like that when you (I) just need to practice. There were many beautiful and haunting photos, but this boy/young man really stuck with me. I can’t remember who the photographer is or the name of the book.

It was fairly experimental, you can see a couple of different styles of painting in it and it is definitely not a finished image (me saying this is significant, ’cause I’m normally happy with things before most would consider them finished). I wish that I had done a little more work on it at the time, as I can never go back to a painting. This painting might also benefit from some cropping…

I promise that next month I will post something new.