ETSY Shop Update and Month Long SALE!

The holidays are approaching quickly! I've started Christmas way earlier than I ever have in the past, I love Thanksgiving so I don't like "skipping it" to start decorating for Christmas. But this is the first year that Reed and I will be "home" for the Holidays! I've also been asked to participate in some bloggy Christmas events so I'm kinda excited :)



So in honor of getting ready for Christmas but not skipping over Thanksgiving and the importance of acknowledging our blessings I'm having a thankful sale on my ETSY shop!!

From now until the 28th I will be offering free shipping across the shop, and I will be having a 40% off sale in honor of Black Friday. I've never been someone to wake up early and hit the stores so my Black Friday event will last from Midnight until Noon! So put it on your calendars and get over to the shop to get your custom gifts and goodies!! 

Here are a few goodies I have in the shop that have proven to be pretty popular :) 

Want a puppy portrait to add to your family room, office, or mudroom?? Well This 8x10 portrait is only $25 and is the perfect size to make a statement about your loved one without giving off a "crazy dog" owner look. Even though lets be honest, we all are crazy dog owners at heart right :) 

I have various other size pet portraits ranging from $25- $40 so be sure to check them all out! 

This customized tray has been SUPER popular lately! This $30 solid pine tray is a great gift to give for a wedding present, anniversary, or just because. I've done a few different designs for this changing around the wording, and even replacing the place with a bundle of grapes. If any of you have custom designs floating around just let me know and we can work together on achieving it!! 

This is one of my favorites :) These scarves are hand painted with a floral design and beautiful vibrant colors. Along with this one I have done loads of other designs varying from College teams to monograms! If you don't see your team or monogram listed message me and we can get it done asap! And even have a few in a little boutique!! Woot woot!! 

GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED! 

And don't forget about the Giveaway I have going on with Rachel over at Like A Saturday! You have just a few days left so be sure to enter enter enter!  

Painting with out BLACK

A few weeks ago I shared how to use the  language of color (if you missed it check it out here) I talked about all kinds of terms and how the color wheel is set up. Now I didn't get a chance to go to deep in to color theory and I don't really think I'm qualified to go much deeper. BUT I did think I should share how all of those terms can be used in an actual painting. 

So today I decided to do a little pet portrait of a precious pup and show you how the knowledge of color can help create a really unique painting. 

Quickly I'll just share with you how I started. You can see that the board I was using had a painting on it before. So I just used some gesso (basically primer) to cover it up and start a quick drawing. I am so not good at sketching so I usually just do a real generic sketch (this one was based off of a photo) and then fill in the details with the paint. 

I then started with my high lights. Based from the image I took the lightest parts of the fur, where the light was reflecting, and chose my light colors. I didn't want to do a super realistic painting so I decided to go with yellow and a bright orange. And I left them straight out of the tube, no mixing. 

This puppy is a dark black with khaki/cream spots on his face, ears and paws. But like I said earlier, to avoid a flat and realistic style painting I decided not use black or white at all. I decided to use nothing but color to create this painting. So by using the knowledge that contrasting colors often create a muddy brown/black when mixed I started at it.  You can tell that there are lots of blues purples yellows and pinks. What you probably can't pick out are the greens. Green and red are one of the best combinations for getting a dark color with out using black. So the dark spots are mostly a forest green mixed with a red. You can see how different areas are shaded with different colors I used that to create the volume of the body and show how the light can cause different temperatures of color just by how it hits the object. 

Painting with out black and white is hard. But often creates a much better painting. By using other colors to create your darks you are actually painting much more realistically than if you only use black as your darkening agent. Just look at an object and really study it. You can see that the shadows are different shades or tones of a color like red, green blue, ect. It takes a minute to notice but once you see it its like light goes off and you will never see white as just white or black as just black again! 

I enjoyed this fun little painting. I wish I had paid more attention to my photography so I could have actually shared the process with you instead of just talking. But I just got caught up in my TV show and painting. Too many things I love happening at once for me to stop and photograph the process :) Sorry 

So this wasn't nearly as informative as the earlier post about color (here) but I hope it helps you get creative with the next little craft or painting you decide to make. Seeing that you can get real lights and real darks with out using black and white will make any project more interesting and dynamic!! 

*I have started some advertising with Passion Fruit Ads and need some lovely blogs to grace my side bar :) Please check out my advertising page and let me know if you are interested!! HERE

Recent Creations!

I've been sharing a lot of ooey gooey stuff lately so I decided to share some projects instead :) 
I haven't done anything to the house or the studio but have some BIG plans that will hopefully start rolling this week. I'll keep ya updated. 

So here are a few projects that I did for my aunt. She commissioned both of them, one for a gift and the other is a donation to a church fundraising auction. 
The sign below is for the church. It's a solid piece of pine shelving with wire on the back for hanging. 

 This is the other project she commissioned. It is a refurbish of an old desk she found and wanted re done for her grand-babies. 



they are Clemson fans too so she let me have free reign on the design. I know Clemsons colors are technically orange and purple but navy is often used in place of purple. So to keep it a cleaner design we went with navy with a white and orange racing stripe. And added little details like tiger eyes peaking over the desk, and a fun font with the paw on the back. 

And I did some other work for a friend on ETSY. She wanted a small portrait of her fur baby for the office. So these are 8x10 canvases for her and a friend. 

Finally I did some other tin signs. The Texas A&M sign I did specifically for Kelley from The Grant Life and the other was for another client on etsy. Both were complete custom commissions both for new friends that I've found through the awesome world of the internet :)

 These are just some of the projects I've been working with lately. I've loved the amount of time I've had to do these kinds of projects and I'm looking forward to adding more to my schedule!! 

My puppy portrait painting

I'm sure y'all think I'm a freak because I've written posts about our puppy, Tepe, multiple times. 

But that doesn't matter to me, I love her and I made this blog to write about what I love so HA :p

Basically,  I have a lot of time on my hands after the move. I moved pretty quickly with getting the house set up. I know I still haven't revealed the bathroom, bedroom, or guestroom/studio. But they are almost there. I've just gotta finish setting up some of the little details before I share. But with all this time hanging around I get to snuggle with Tepe a lot and watch HGTV. Then I get bored and really need to do something creative. Fixing the house is great, but its not the same as making art. I haven't been able to really do any big projects or sculptures because I just don't have the space at the time. So everything I've done has been a bit cheesy. 

Cheesy is exactly what this is, and I don't have any place to hang it so I think my mom wants it :) So glad she loves Tepe as much as I do! 

But painting was something I needed to do, no script, or furniture involved. It felt a little more like "art" than what I've done recently. But I still miss my real art, and can not wait for my studio to get set up!

  (I think its gonna happen this week!!)
Anyways, I painted one of my favorite pictures of Tepe from when she was just a tiny baby.

I just did a real quick acrylic painting. With a fast sketch and then applied the painterly monochromatic background. I played around when it came to actually applying paint to her. Technically mixing on the canvas isn't the best idea but its fast and easy, plus I like the texture it makes :) 

I'm thinking about adding this to the Etsy shop. Obviously, not selling this particular one but offering pet portraits maybe??? We will just have to see, let me know what y'all think.

*Added to the shop! Check it out here www.etsy.com

Our Puppy!

This is baby puppy, Tepe. 

She is 9 weeks old. 

We got her two weeks ago from a shelter in Liberty, SC. 

She is an English Pointer/Lab mix and is so cute!! 

The name Tepe is short for her full name Ticuantepe, which is the town in Nicaragua where Reeds parents own a Pineapple farm. We shortened it to Tepe, which we pronounce as "Teppy". 

This is one of my favorite pictures of her. 

It was the first day we got her home :) 

I ordered Tepe some special collars from Etsy. 

They are BEAUTIFUL! 

Allyson from SophiesDogBoutique has so many different fabrics to choose from and can make them special for your precious puppy :) 

Go on over and check them out, she also makes leeshes and accessories too! 

Just tell her I sent you:)

I ordered 2 so Tepe could have choices!! 

But really, one is a medium and the other is a large. 

We aren't sure how big she will get so we needed options.

The blue is the large so she still has a good bit of growing before it will fit her. 

And Yes. I sat her on our island to take the pictures :) 

I wanted to light from the window... 

This one is my favorite! It is such a cool fabric, I would love to have some of it for myself :)

This one is also a little big but it will do for now. 

She is growing so fast I'm sure she will fit it in a few weeks.

And I just thought this picture was hilarious! Looks at her face!! 

She was just enjoying the yard and the sunshine :)

And she eats the grass every now and then. 

And ending, with this beauty!

I thought it was similar to the one in the bath tub but showed how much she has grown in the 2 weeks we have had her. 

So anyway, we love our Tepe and I wish she would stay little forever!

Right now she is sleepin in my lap with her head on the keyboard...

Its official, Reed and I got a puppy and our heart has melted. 

Now we are a real married couple :) 

House Project #1

Once the house was officially flea free Reed and I started really moving in. 

I have been looking forward to decorating our house for ever and I finally get to start it! 

First let me tell you about this sofa! Reed and I found it on Craigslist for $100!

Its a two year old micro fiber queen pull out sofa. 

We needed something that was small but not too small. Our living room is only 12x16 which means we don't have very much room at all. We love having people over so we needed a sofa that would provide enough seating with out taking up the entire room. Because we are both poor college students we couldn't just go shopping for new furniture so we had to really dig deep and search hard. I was fully prepared to end up with a well used "retro" sofa that desperately needed a slip cover. But! Again, God has blessed us with another amazing deal! Finding this super nice sofa that acts as seating annnnnd can help when family comes to visit as far as sleeping arrangements was a HUGE blessing. I mean really, I think $100 bucks is a steal. We also have a love seat and chair in Columbia, hopefully the next time I get home I can bring those back! 

So with only having a TV stand, sofa bed, and a few kitchen chairs the only real decorating I could do is hang stuff. 

I set out everything on the floor so that I could rearrange it as much as I want with out putting holes in the wall. These are all things that Reed and I had around the house. 

-The Deer was Reeds first ever buck from Edgefield when he was 13. 

- The "washed by the water" painting was one I did the other night just for fun. I'm thinking about doing a few more and selling them on here. What do you think?

- The dog drawing next to it is one that was Reeds parents, they gave us two beautiful pieces that we now have in our living room. 

-The long painting between the deer and the dogs was done by The Chicken Man in Columbia. His paintings are so quirky and fun, they are pretty popular around the Midlands. He is a interesting character. He paints on scrap wood and has his "roaming studio" in random places around Columbia. JB (my brother) found him one day and bought a few different pieces for a great deal and was generous enough to give me 2! This one and then a Clemson one that I think is gonna go up in the kitchen!!

- The round butterfly plates were given to Reed after his Nanna passed this past August. Reed has always been a big bug collector and has a beautiful collection of butterflies from numerous different places. These just have a little more sentimental value to them so we decided to hang these instead of his personal catches.
-And finally the beetle, butterfly, and snake paintings are all gifts I gave to Reed back in 2009. They are watercolor and color pencil drawings of his favorite things. I can't name them for you anymore but I do know that he has the beetle and butterfly in his bug collection and  the snake was a pet that he had for a long time, sadly she is no longer with us. She didn't make it through the cold winter of 2011. 

Reed is always such a generous helper. 

I called him in from the yard to get him to help me hang the Deer because I didn't want to risk messing it up and he told me to step back and direct him so that I cold get it just right on the first try. 

He really is so great, I love that he is willing to help decorate around the house even if I get picky with how close the dogs are to the chicken. 

Looking around the living room today I realized that we are going to have a pretty good amount of animals in it. I'll have to share more when I get pictures of the other projects in the room. But just beware, if you ever visit our house you will be greeted with a deer, raccoon, bass, and possibly a duck all as soon as you walk in the front door :)  

Gettin' Dirty

If you know me personally then you know that when I am working on an art project I am pretty messy. I think every clothing article I own has a paint stain on it. When I work I tend to not care about where I wipe my hands or my brush and I usually end up with paint, marker, charcoal or whatever it is I am working with covering my hands and usually have marks all the way up to my elbows. (Sometimes I even find strands of hair covered in paint.) So, I wanted to share some of the projects that get me the messiest. Charcoal is a medium I really enjoy. For whatever reason I always start out loathing the project but once I get started I enjoy being able to use my fingers to create the texture and depth of the objects. This dry medium is fun and though it starts off intimidating once I get started I often realize how forgiving it is. Being able to smudge any unnecessary mark away is always satisfying. Anyway, as you can tell I enjoy charcoal :) So, I hope you enjoy looking at some of my favorite pieces! 

JB (my older brother) in beast mode :) 

 I know I shared this before but I just REALLY love this one. 

Still life 

Spooky playground 

Popcorn Narrative

Ok, I know this isn't charcoal. This is dry pastels and they are used pretty much the same way. I still get to use my fingers to smudge around the color!

Ok I am kinda doing a dog study. I don't know if these are really that great but I wanted to share my progress. 

Beagle 1 

Lab 1 

Lab 2

Beagle 2

This is all the charcoal drawings I have as of now but I hope you enjoy my dirty art projects :)