This cake is no lie

I made this awesome cake the other day. It was two yellow cake layers with homemade butter cream frosting and strawberries layered inside and out. Yummm. It was wicked good. It only lasted 2 days in my house. I wanted to post it here because I made the cake to have fun decorating it and I think it came out alright! Maybe next I'll Zentangle^® a cake.. =) Mmm, I'm thinking chocolate swirls.

New Opportunity

I followed my boyfriend to a local small-scale pet shop the other day. They have all sorts of interesting animals; lizards, snakes, fish - some small and some very large, birds, small mammals, aligators, etc. He was looking for a volunteer opportunity, I was hoping they'd let me stick around and draw the animals. When I asked to hang around while my boyfriend volunteered the co-owner was surprisingly excited. He offered space on the wall for selling prints on consignment, he even offered to let me set up a pet portrait booth! I don't think I'm good enough to do pet portraits on the fly, but maybe I'll get there. For now I'd love to get the opportunity to paint the birds and sketch the lizards.

The painting above is one I did of Amber, the Red Tailed Hawk. I painted it a couple years ago when we had live birds in our classroom and I think it's time I revisit bird portraits.

Zoological Illustration

I love painting animals. It hasn't been my focus persay, but I really do enjoy it. I found an illustrator today, Evan Barbour, today who does beautiful animal illustrations. His birds are phenomenal! About those blue jays... =) He says he started with watercolors but has since introduced other materials as his technique has evolved. You can see his website here:  http://evanbarbour.com/

His website is also an inspiration. It's always good to see websites that really work just as well as the art.

A new thing

So I've had this blog for years ever since I had to do a project for a programming class. Now I think I'll refurbish it and use it for real this time! I've been trying to get stuff done - who isn't? - and failing miserably. Perhaps by blogging I can hold myself more accountable and stop blaming things like sleep, books, sudoku or the cat.

First mission, make this blog look less like it's a law firm. I need to figure out how to use one of my paintings as a sort of background maybe?

Second mission? Paint! I need to do two more experiments in the next week! Last week (I hope it was only last week) I painted trees. Trees have always been my achille's heel and I finally painted a beautiful tree. Who knew that I needed to put down the paintbrush and pick up the paper towels? I didn't see that one coming. Next I need to do a lot of trees! A background sort of woodland that isn't too busy, and not too lame.

Left to right: Paper Towel, Round Brush, Flat Brush

The second experiment will be my mother's entrance hall. Right now, it's all brown with a white archway painted along it. Next I will be adding vines, flowers, birdhouses and of course lots of birds! Ever painted a blue jay? Best thing ever. They are just so majestic.

Liz Taylor

I've been working on this portrait-ish thing of Liz Taylor for a while now.. very slowly in photoshop. Thought today would be a good time to share a small piece of it. It's not finished, but I wanted to share how it's going. I like how the eyes look, but the rest is so-so.