Baby shower projects

So last weekend was my sister-in-law's baby shower.  My wife did all the planning and assigned me a few tasks:

First up was wrapping the gift.  We got her a car seat, so it wasn't a small box.  The criteria from Mrs. Dadoo - she wanted it to look like a bear.  So we came up with this....

The body, arms, feet and ears are fur from Jo-Ann's.  The eyes and nose are felt.  Everything was hot glued on for the sake of time.  The body itself is open on the bottom so the whole thing can just slide off the top when it's time to unwrap.  The arms and feet were built the same way.  I made a template out of cardboard, wrapped that in batting and then wrapped that in fur.  Again, more hot glue to keep it all together.  Eyes and nose were the same, except for felt instead of fur.

Next up was cupcakes.  We have a few artsy cupcake places near us, but I had trouble swallowing the $3 a piece price for a cupcake.  So it was Pinterest and more DIY. Thus we have.....

The cupcakes were just a box mix (again for speed) and eyes are Oreos with M&M's.  Noses are also M&M's.   

Everyone came out as planned.  Only spent about $15 for the cupcakes (ended up with 48 complete) and about $15 for wrapping the gift (thanks to coupons and having misc elements on hand)

New "digital doodle"

While killing some time, I started doodling in GIMP.  This is the result....

I'm calling it "Madman" mostly for the crazy/sinister grin.  It's getting put in the queue to do a full painting.  

Started on a new tribute piece

After hearing that Christopher Lee passed away yesterday, I remembered seeing on Facebook back in May that Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price all have the same birthday.  So my next project is a tribute to the 3 of them. 

Rather that sketch this one out like I normally do before painting, I thought I'd take a stab at digital art.  This is the cleaned up line work that I'll use as my reference for my painting. 

I used 3 photo's I found with Google image search as the base before I started my draft.  I added a little color to get a feel for how the end result would look. 

Time to make a run to the art store for supplies!

Etsy shop is open!

I just opened my Esty shop.  I'm starting out with selling copies of my "Shades of Blue"  It can be found here

I'm open to customization, so if you like it, but don't like blue we can work something out.  Just contact me here or thru the etsy store

Happy Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year, I put my artistic talents to use.  For my mother and mother-in-law, I did portrait of my brother and me (for my mom) and my wife & her sister (for my m-i-l).  Both started with a sketch and was refined until I liked the way it looked.  For my mother-in-law, the sketch was in my book:

For my mother's it was straight on the canvas (sorry no pics of that).  The completed paintings are acrylic on canvas, 8"x10" in size.

For my mom:

For my mother-in-law:

A few of my previous projects.

So each time I need a gift for my wife I try to some up with something new.  For Christmas this year I painted her this:

It's acrylic on canvas of our dog Blue.  She's a fat, lovable dog and is my usual go-to for gift inspiration.

For our anniversary last year, I painted her these:

It's us as characters in some of the cartoons we watch.  (Yes, I'm a 32 year old that still watches cartoons).  From Left to Right: Archer, The Simpsons, Family Guy and The Venture Bros. 


More projects to come.  Like/Follow/Pin/etc to stay in the loop on all my projects. 

What to do with a split entry home?

I've noticed in my area, the common house is a split entry, circa 1980.  In fact, that's the type of house my parents live in.  This is one that's for sale near me right now:

Most don't have the large V over the front door, but you get the idea.  The chief complaint about this type of house is that the entryway is small.  Usually there's only enough room to open before hitting the stairs.  From experience, a 3 foot by 6 foot space is a very inconvenient entry.  But what if you could do some remodeling and make the house look cooler and work better.

So while playing around with SketchUp the other day, I made some changes and came up with this:

- Then entryway has been pushed out

- The roof has been removed and a flat roof installed over the living room and bedrooms

- The entryway has a sloped roof higher than the rest to allow for the triangle shaped windows to let more light in.

- Floor to ceiling windows in the living room.

As you can see, I was going for a hybrid of mid-century modern and contemporary modern design.  I'd file this with a doodle/sketch.  It's not complete by any means (no lower windows, garage is missing, etc)  

But if you like the design and want to remodel you're house, drop me a line.  I'd be happy to work with you on the project.

First Pop Art painting is almost complete

What better why to kick off my blog with a progress pic! My first attempt at a Pop Art style painting is complete. I call it "Shades of Blue"

 

The project was a birthday gift for my wife.  She is a fan of pop artists like Warhol & Lichtenstein and the general mod/60's style.  My inspiration for the this came from a art piece I saw on Pinterest, which lead to an Etsy item.  The original item sold but here's the picture:

 

Since we're not really cat people, I used our hound dog Blue as the model. Sadly, I didn't take pictures as I went, however I like the process that I used and might try it again for future projects. 

But a quick recap of the process is:
1. I did a rough sketch of her on a piece of notebook paper (it's what I had with me at work at the time)

2. I scanned the image so I could manipulate it on the computer.
3. Using MS Paint, I stretched the image to give me a good reference.  In this case, I knew my canvases would be 12"x36" so I adjusted the image accordingly
4. I printed the new stretched image to give myself a full size reference image.  
5. Using the new reference image, I sketched Blue on to 3 canvases.
6. From there is was a matter of painting each part (legs, body, face, etc) a different shade of blue.  It took a little pre-planning to make sure each part was a different blue. 



 

The paint I used was just acrylic craft paint from Michael's. The inexpensive ones that are $0.69 to $1.29 a bottle.  The canvases were also from Michael's. They were the Artist's Loft brand back stapled canvases.  

As I said, it's ALMOST complete.  They still need frames.  I haven't seen any store bought frames that fit a 12"x36" canvas, that I like.  Also, I'm too cheap to do custom framing at Michael's or Jo-Ann, so I think I'll be doing a DIY frame.  I'm thinking a simple, black frame would look good.  So I'm off to my local Menards/Lowe's/Home Depot to see what I can find for a frame without breaking the bank.

If you like what you see, make sure to like/follow/pin/etc on your preferred social media.

Next up - My custom framing job for Shades of Blue.