Sweet Things Series

I've completed a new series!! I loved working on these so much! I just love how colorful they are! These started out being painted on Claybord, but I soon found out that I despise working on it. I had to stop and try something else. I already knew that I wanted these to be displayed on little easels. They're only 4 x 4"

So I decided to try mounting my normal watercolor paper to the Claybord and then paint on that. After some research, I used some acrylic medium as and adhesive and mounted my paper to the board. It worked out perfectly and the rest of the painting experience worked like a dream! :)

So I have Cupcake, Ice Cream and Candy to present to you! Three tattooed, "Sweet" beauties.

Cupcake

Ice Cream

Candy

 Here are the three originals, which are now available in my Etsy shop, displayed on their little easels!

You can also find prints of them in all of my online shops... Ebay, Etsy and my website!

New Art and New Shop!

"Wither"

This is my newest painting, finished last week! I originally started this painting in gouache on rose colored paper, but it just wasn't going well at all! I'm not so sure about using gouache all alone. I couldn't get it to blend without it becoming a streaky mess. I may try it again sometime. I haven't decided if I want to yet. So I started it over and did it in my usual media of watercolor and white gouache... ahh, much better! :) I'm glad I started over because I'm thrilled with how she turned out! I managed to get the background the dusky rose color that I'd wanted and I'm happy with all the wilting plants and flowers.

I hope you like her too! Prints and the original of her can be purchased on my website HERE

"Rhiannon"

This is the ACEO I did for the winner of my free ACEO commission giveaway! She was fun to work on, and a little different from what I normally do. :)

Limited Edition prints are available on my website HERE

New ElvenstarArt Tube Shop!

I'm also excited to announce that I now have my own psp tube shop! In case you haven't heard, Dreamscape Imaging has closed, so I had to make a decision as to how I wanted to offer my tubes. I've decided to try going independent this time and sell them myself. You may now find all my tubes in the new ElvenstarArt Tube Shop! I hope you enjoy my new store. :)

My main website has also been reorganized slightly to make room for the new tube shop, so if you have trouble finding anything, just let me know and I'll direct you to it. :)

And finally, for the next week you can get 20% off at my Etsy Shop with the coupon code: TAKE20

This include prints, originals and jewelry... Visit my shop HERE!

Wisdom -- New Art!

Wisdom
I finally finished this painting!! It was a long time in coming. Last month I came down with the flu, which had me sick for 2 weeks. And then when I was starting to feel better from that I caught something else! lol Now I am finally feeling better and have this painting to share with you! :)

I started this back in November, but other work and then illness got in the way of my finishing it until now. I'm so happy with how this turned out, and I love the owls even though I thought I'd go crazy working on the feather details! I very much hope you like her too!

8.5 x 11" Watercolor and white gouache.

Prints of her are now available on my website HERE.

I also have some new bookmark designs available!

These are available HERE.

And lastly, I have some new stamps out from Sweet Pea Stamps! These are available as Rubber Stamps and Digi Stamps.
You can see those here: Rubber | DIGI

Christmas Kitties Painting

 "Christmas Kitties"

I wanted to do something a little different and fun! And since I love kitties, what better than some sleeping holiday cuties! :) I actually began the sketch for this last year, but I didn't get a chance to finish it before Christmas, so I waited until this year to finish it up.

Prints and the originals are currently available in my Etsy shop! Check them out HERE!

It doesn't really fit into any category existing on my website, so I think it will mainly stay exclusive to my Etsy/Ebay shops. Unless in the future I accumulate enough miscellaneous artwork like this to give them their own gallery on my site, but at the moment I don't see that happening. You never know though...

Also now available is my 2013 Calendar!! It features 12 of my newest artworks, none of which has been in any of my previous calendars.

This is now available in my Zazzle shop!! Find that HERE!

Next, I'm back to my fantasy art, but I hope you enjoyed this little departure from my norm! :)

Sea Swept Series

I knew I wanted to paint another mermaid. I wanted to do another one in a similar scene/color scheme as my painting, From the Dark Depths. So I was trying to come up with the right pose that I wanted for her. I wanted her sitting up more, not lying down like in "FTDD." So often for paintings when I'm trying to figure out a layout for them, I'll do rough little sketches just to get an idea of how I want it before I do a final sketch. I sketched several poses (pictured right) and I still couldn't decide. I even posted this on Facebook and asked for opinions, but ultimately I was fond of several of these. So I decided that I had to do the few I liked best and make a series of them.

I've always felt that I needed more mermaids in my gallery anyway! I think that I have about enough to give them their own gallery on my website soon! :)

Here are the finished paintings! I painted them all using the exact same coloring but done in different ways. It was fun to see all the different combinations that could be done. All are 5 x 7" watercolor and white gouache. The prints and originals are available on my website HERE.

"ADRIFT"

SEA MIST

WINDSWEPT

DETAILS...

Store Sale!!

Hi everyone! I'm having a sale in my ebay store this week! Get up to 20% off of EVERYTHING in my store. This includes all prints, jewelry, original art and more! Click the banner below to visit my store and get these great deals!

The "Bleeding Hearts" auction also has a few days left! Visit and bid on that HERE!

New ACEOs!!

"Mina"

This first ACEO was a commission that I finished at the end of July. I mean I finished it on the very last day of the month, so it counts as a July painting, just barely! ;)

I wasn't going to do any commissions for a little while but I am sometimes willing to take on ACEO commissions even when my commissions are closed just because they're so quick and fun to do. This one was particularly fun since I pretty much got to do whatever I like with it. A freedom that I enjoyed! :)

I named her "Mina" since she reminds me of the character from Dracula.
Watercolor and white gouache. 2.5 x 3.5"  Prints are available on my website.

"Bleeding Hearts"

Next is my newest Pretty Poison ACEO!  This is number four in the series. I wanted her to different from other pink flowers that I've done and I think I managed to pull it off. I like her pink and white hair! :)  I hope you like her too!
Watercolor and white gouache. 2.5 x 3.5"

The ORIGINAL ACEO is for auction on ebay right now! View the auction HERE

Prints are available on my website.

Unicorn and Fairy WIP

6/28/12:

I've started a new artwork, and here is the sketch! It features a dark unicorn and fairy. I've only ever drawn a couple unicorns, so I was overdue to do another one. Of my others, one was a commission and the other is a really old drawing that I don't even have on my website.

Last month sometime, I was watching the movie "The Grey" with Liam Neeson and was inspired by all the wintery landscape. And for some reason a unicorn came to mind. I can't explain how these things happen since I don't even know myself. lol That's just how it came to me. And I decided to pair it with a pretty fairy, since I haven't painted any fairies in a while. My Fairies Gallery is lagging behind, without a single painting from this year added to it. It's time to rectify that. ;)

When I sketched this I didn't really leave enough room for the background I had in mind. So I'm going to paint it a little larger than I originally planned to add some extra space for the snow and trees.  I took the scanned sketch into Photoshop and made a mock-up of the coloring I'm thinking of using for this. I don't do this for every painting, but sometimes for ones I'm not entirely sure about or are a little more complex.

As I mentioned before, I want this to be a wintery piece, which considering it is about 100 degrees out today, sounds pretty great to me! Okay, so it doesn't have to be winter, but I would definitely be happy with some nice Fall-like weather right now. And some RAIN too! We're having a bit of a drought here in Michigan. Everything is so brown and ugly.  ANYWAY... the mock-up I did in PS is basically the direction I'd like to go with this. The colors with real paint will of course vary from this some, but it's gives me a good idea how to proceed.  Hmm... I tend to work in blue a lot, don't I? :)

I have no idea what I'm going to name this painting yet. I'll give it some though as I work. Meanwhile, I welcome any suggestions.

---------------------------------------

7/10/12:

I wish that I was further along with this painting, but I just couldn't gather the energy to work on it much during our 2 week heat wave. I think my brain quit functioning for that period of time!  lol It was just way too hot. I have air conditioning, but it is old and just doesn't do a good enough job when it gets to be over 95 degrees. It's better than nothing, I'm sure, but it was still pretty miserable during the day.

Anyway, the heat finally broke this week and it has been a beautiful low to mid 80s. So time to get back to work. I made one disastrous attempt at this painting. The background turned out all wrong. So I'm trying a different approach.

I've actually managed to go this long as a watercolor artist without ever stretching my paper. I often work small enough that the paper buckling isn't a problem, and when I have done larger paintings I've gotten lucky enough that any warping of the paper didn't effect how the painting turned out. But this is the second time this year, where I've had a wash turn out awful due to the paper buckling and have had to trash the painting. So I'm finally caving and am going to stretch the paper for the first time with this painting. This was kind of a spur of the moment decision, so after soaking the paper in water, I stapled it to foam board. In the future, I will get something more substantial to attach it to. I have some hardboard panels, but I they're too thin to put staples through and they'd be really hard to remove. So hopefully the foam board will do for now. I've read that gator board is a good choice so I think I'll try that next time.

Once the paper is completely dry, then I'll transfer the sketch onto it. I'm also going to put some masking tape around the edges for a clean line, though I know I'm going to trim off at least some of the border. In the future, I will leave a larger border too. This one is cut a little close. Oh well.  :)

I just may update this tread with some more progress of this painting, so check back if you want to see it!


---------------------------------------

7/11/12:

Well, I've learned that foam board is NOT a good surface to attach this to. It seemed like it was going to go well, but then I get up this morning and see that it curved the whole board as shown in the photo. I knew that it might absorb the water since the foam board surface is just paper, but I hoped maybe it would still stay flat because of the foam. No such luck.

So, I've started a new method. The thing is that I have to use materials that I already have right now. The craft stores I have around me (Michaels, Hobby Lobby) are pretty worthless for a lot of art supplies. They don't have any kind of board that would be good for stretching and don't even have gummed tape, which would be nice to try instead of staples. I usually order a lot of my art supplies online, but I don't want to have to wait for them to arrive. I'll get them for future use, but I want to get started on this painting now!

This time around, I'm going to try using a piece of hardboard that I have. The main reason I didn't try this in the first place is that I would have to use heavy duty staples, which will be harder to remove, and that the board is only 1/8" thick and my shortest staples are 1/4".

I've solved the thickness problem by taping a layer of foam board to the back of the panel. This gave just enough extra thickness that the staples didn't poke through the back.

After cutting the paper to the size I want it, I get a container of water and dip the paper in it for a few minutes. Then I lay it flat on the board and smooth it out with a paper towel, pushing all the excess water off of the paper. Once I'm sure that it's flat and ready, I start stapling it down.

So, now I have it stapled down and am currently waiting for it to dry completely. Fingers crossed that it will work out this time!









7/11 Part 2:

SUCCESS!!

Ready to move on to painting!

...finally

---------------------------------------

7/12/12:

Yesterday, I laid down the first washes of the painting. It seems as if it is going to work really well with the paper stretched! Pictured to the right is an example of the new wash/s beside my first attempt on unstretched paper. That is the version I threw away and started over. In some cases, I don't mind some texture to the washes of paint, but in this case I don't want anything like that. 

So far it seems to be going well. I've built up the color so it is darker in the background behind them, leaving a lighter area where the moonlight will be shining through the trees a little.

Next I'm working on the trees in the background, starting with some of the more distant ones since they'll be lighter.

I know that much of the foreground elements are going to be dark colors or black so I'm not concerned about painting over them now. Except for her skin, which has had masking fluid applied to it to protect it.

---------------------------------------

7/17/12:

I pretty much have the background done now. I added the nearest, darkest trees. I made the branches a little denser than in the sketch. I also shaded the snow and defined the fairy and unicorn so that they're easier to see when it come time to paint them in. I may think that the background needs more work once I get the foreground figures painted, but for now it looks pretty good.

Now it is time for the fun part... painting the fairy and unicorn! I know I'm going to start her skin next. I'm not sure if I will finish her completely before moving on the the unicorn or work on them both at the same time.

---------------------------------------

7/19/12:

I did quite a bit of work on the fairy! I hope to get this done in the next couple of days. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along so far. :)

---------------------------------------

*UPDATE* 7/22/12:

Finally Finished!
I'm happy to say that I finished this painting last night and am really happy with how it turned out. It could be my favorite that I've done this year! :)

After finishing the painting, I had to remove it from the board. Since this was my first time stretching my watercolor paper and I had to use heavy duty staples, I wasn't sure how this would go. I just knew that I had to proceed very carefully! The first step was to remove the masking tape. That went well and left a nice clean border around the painting. My main concern was getting the staples out without hurting the painting.

The staples came out easier than I thought they would. I used a pair of needle-nose pliers and gently pried them each out. As long as I could get the pliers under the the staple, they wiggled out pretty easily. A couple of them gave me problems, and I was a little nervous about my hand slipping and accidentally gouging the paper. Luckily it was a success in the end and I got them all out. Next time, I'm definitely going to try a different method of securing the paper down, but the paper turned out so smooth that it is worth the trouble of stretching! The final thing that I did was to trim off the edges that had the staple holes, leaving about a 1/4" or so border.

So here is the finished "Midnight Travelers" (thanks to fellow artist, Wendy Fowler, for suggesting the title!)

8.5 x 12" Watercolor and white goauche. Prints available on my website HERE

Details:

Deadly Nightshade

"Deadly Nightshade"

Here she is! #3 in my Pretty Poisons series!
I hope you like her!

ACEO (2.5 x 3.5") watercolor and white gouache.

The original is now up on eBay! View the auction HERE


Prints are also available on my website. They can be found HERE

Pretty Poisons and a New Bracelet

I've been working on commission work lately, so I had to take a break from my own personal work. My most recent completed commission can be viewed on my website. The client wanted a male dark angel reclining in a moonlit meadow. The male was supposed to look like a man in photos provided by the client, and she is very pleased with the result! You can see that on my website HERE.

Now I'm pleased to say, I'm back to work on the next Pretty Poison ACEO. And I will share here, only for my blog readers, what the next one is.

Photo from www.naturephoto-cz.com

The next one is, and I'm sure no poisonous plant series would be complete without... Deadly Nightshade! I have the sketch completely done and have started on the painting. I would have more done, but have a headache, so decided to stop for the night... I probably should be resting and not on the computer! lol

 I should be able to finish it in the next day or two. Judging on the sketch, I'd say this is my favorite of the series so far! I've been looking forward to painting nightshade since the beginning, but I couldn't resist doing Black Hellebore first! The flowers are so pretty and with the contrasting yellow-green center/stamens, I immediately saw dark hair, like the petals, with piercing yellow-green eyes. Had to do that one first! :) I don't really recall why I chose Hemlock to go second. I guess since it is such a contrast in colors to Black Hellebore. Nightshade is different too, but still kind of dark.  Anyway, that will be coming soon!  I have all of them planned out. There will be at least 6, but could be up to 8. There are 2 that I haven't decided if I want to make them part of the series or not yet.

I think that after I do Nightshade, I'm going to do a larger painting and then go back and do the fourth poison. :) I have a couple larger paintings planned and I'm pretty excited to start on both of them. I just might share the sketch once I have it complete. I'm not sure when I will open my commissions back up... I know I have some people who've expressed interest in this. I will open them again, but I think I'm going to take some time to do some work for me. I've done a near equal amount of commissions as personal work this year. So maybe in a month or two, I'll open them back up.

Lastly, I managed to finish a new bracelet at the end of May! It's in a Queen of Hearts theme and the first piece of jewelry I've made in many months. I'd like to make some more if I get the chance. I need some more pieces back in my shop. :)

This is for sale in my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/100836717/queen-of-hearts-bracelet-tubular

The Succubus Gift and Newer Art

I've been really busy on commissions lately that I've only gotten one personal painting done since January! Luckily I've really enjoyed working on everything so much! So I'd like to share my three newest paintings.

"Cecaelia"
First of all is a small commissioned painting of a Cecaelia, or a human/octopus hybrid. You know, kind of like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. ;)  I was very intrigued by the subject since I have yet to paint a Cecaelia. I also would like to add more sea creatures/mermaids to my portfolio. Ideas for them just don't come to me as often as other things.

She was 5 x 7", watercolor and white gouache. Prints of her are available on my website.

"Spellbook"

I feel like I paint in blues much more than any other color, and while it is one of my favorite color schemes, it is nice to switch it up a bit at times. And fiery red and Autumn colors are probably my next favorite! And what better for a witch reading her book of spells! This painting seems a bit off-season to be painted in February instead of around Halloween, but it's my favorite time of year. :)

8.5 x 11"  Watercolor and white gouache.

"The Succubus Gift"

I'm excited to show my newest commission! This painting was done as cover art for an an urban fantasy/paranormal romance novel by BR Kingsolver. You can read more about this book on the author's website: http://brkingsolver.com
It isn't out yet, but should be sometime next month.

I tried a new technique on the background of this painting. I couldn't quite get the background as smooth as I wanted the coloring to be for some reason at first, so I had to completely scrap it and start over. This time around I tried an airbrush technique. I got a cheap airbrush kit on ebay, the air is even propelled by canned air and not an air compressor. I knew that it would suit my needs because I didn't intend on doing anything detailed with it. I just wanted some soft coloring effects in the background, so I didn't need any fancy, expensive equipment. It worked very well! I just used some darker blue watercolor in it and sprayed in the darker blue areas of the background. I think that I will be using this technique again in the future.

9 x 12.5" Watercolor, white gouache, colored pencil and airbrush.

Prints of this painting are available on my website: http://www.elvenstarart.com/Galleries/Misc/TheSuccubusGift.html

Below is the complete cover design, with text, also done by me.

I currently have two special auctions going on ebay! These are for two LARGE sets of ACEO prints. Each set contains 20 different prints and they both started at only one penny!! See both those auctions HERE!

In Licensing news...

For all you cross stitchers out there, my painting, "Shadow Dragon" is now available as a cross stitch pattern! Get that HERE!  Also, "Spellbook" and "Cecaelia" are available as tubes on Dreamscape Imaging! Get those and any of my other tubes HERE!

Next up... I have possibly one more commission to go! After that I hope to start a new ACEO series that I've been planning for several months now. I just haven't gotten a chance to start it yet due to other projects. All I'll say, is that it's a sort of spin off to my garden series, but with a theme of it's own. :)  I have some other larger painting ideas too that I want to do. I may do one of those first and then do the ACEOs. Not sure yet...

New Halloween Painting!!

"All Hallows' Eve"

My Halloween painting for this year! Last year, I finished "Pumpkin Patch" the day before Halloween. I didn't want to wait quite so long this year. :)

She is done in Watercolor and white goauche and is 4 x 6"

The ORIGINAL painting is up for auction on Ebay for the next week! You can view the auction HERE


The Auction for my ACEO, "Stealth" still has a couple of days left! "Stealth" auction HERE

New Auctions!
I have yet another bunch of hand-embellished canvas ACEO prints up for auction this week!!

See all 9 available HERE

Cross Stitch Charts
Heaven and Earth Designs released a couple more of my paintings as cross stitch patterns!!
Dragon Angel
Winter Magic