Summer is over?

Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since I have posted an entry. I mostly took the summer off, this year. I spent most of my time hanging out and doing fun things with our 3 chilns. What a great time we had!

But, I did get a couple of things done. First of all, back in May/June, I finished a commission for a friend in the UK. It was based on a photo she had taken of her two feline friends.



A couple of months ago, another friend asked me to render a very special story for her husband. It is a story about a fox and a weasel (a black footed ferret, to be exact) that has been ongoing between these two through their relationship. The story involves the fox becoming ill, so the ferret covers him up with blankets and captures his sneezes in a jar to release in a field.

Please forgive the photo quality of the progress images.

First, I started by making some (very rough) sketches in my sketchbook. I had never drawn a black footed ferret, so I grabbed some reference images from google and sort of made my own versions.



There were a few more of these, but this was the one I decided to go with as a step in the right direction.

Then, I started playing with different scenarios.


Originally, I wanted to include some household items to keep it quaint and give the impression that the fox and weasel actually live together in a cozy little forest home.

As you can see, I eventually left the lamp and the wall picture out, since I felt they distracted from the story. The canvas looks brownish because it isn't actually canvas. It is linen, gessoed with clear acrylic gesso, instead of white. I chose the linen for it's earthy look and its specific texture (which is more apparent in the final piece at the bottom.)



I started painting the weasel, first. I was happy that she was a black footed ferret, because it allowed me to make some distinct markings to identify her as such. I was working in acrylics, so blending was tricky...it eventually took several transparent layers to get the blending right. Below is where I began the first layer.



I started blocking in color to get an idea of what the rest of the painting would look like, eventually. I had some ideas of texture for the background, thinking I could make it look like there was wallpaper in their home.



But I couldn't help but think that the blue scaley things really distracted from the main characters, so I toned it down, but let a little of it show through to keep it interesting.



I thought it was finally time to get Mr. Fox looking more like himself. He needed some detail refinement.

I took a couple of days off to look at the painting and decide what else needs to be done. It's funny how my perception changes once I am standing back and just looking.



I decided that some areas needed cleaning up, some needed finer detail work, some colors weren't totally working and the painting really needed a softness that I wasn't getting quite right, so I did those things and I finally felt that it was finished.



I enjoyed creating this painting. It was an honor to be a part of putting a visual image on a sweet story about two people who love each other.