Hespeler Heritage Centre Column

This is one of the columns from the old Hespeler City Hall (Cambridge, Ontario, Canada) which is now the Hespeler Heritage Centre. It was so ornate and beautiful that I just had to draw/paint it!

Hespeler Heritage Centre Column, 2013
12"x 16"
Graphite on canvas

Sold

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Hydro pole

Although this piece is sold and was created last year, I felt it was important to post it to my Blog anyway. It is a good piece and should be part of my on-line portfolio despite the fact that the only photo I have of it does not do it justice.

This pole is located in Galt, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, just across the street from a great restaurant called Tonys Family Diner. :)

Hydro pole, 2013
6"x 12"
Pyrography and colored pencil on birch plywood

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Thinking

I find that when I stop talking and take the time to think something through, the answer will come to me. This is the smallest graphite piece I have done yet, but it was fun to work on.

Graphite on Bristol mounted on birch plywood
4"x4"
$25

Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece. Shipping is additional.

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Train of Thought

This piece started as a doodle that I liked so much that I decided to make it into a Pyrography piece. It was a fun one.

Train of Thought

Pyrography on birch plywood

8"x10" 

$80

 Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece. Shipping is additional.

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Blush 2

Blush 2 was created to be donated to charity. There was an accident with the first Blush piece which created a tiny imperfection, so I made this one. But no one noticed the imperfection on the first Blush piece, so I realized I was worrying about nothing, and decided to donated it. So "Blush 2" is now for sale. It is a bit different than the one that was donated, but I think that is a good thing. I also just found out that Virginia Craig (the wife of Doug Craig who is the Mayor of the City of Cambridge, Ontario) purchased the first Blush piece at the charity auction. How cool is that?

6"x6" Coloured pencils and watercolour on watercolour paper. $150

Framed and matted in a 9 ¾ " x 9 ¾ "" IKEA RIBBA black frame.

Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece. Shipping is additional.

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Molly

This is Molly. She lives on the property where my studio is located and she is a big sweetheart. One day she was sleeping on the patio and I photographed her because she looked so content and calm. I am sooooo pleased with the way this piece turned out. I used Stonehenge paper and I have to admit that I am in love with this paper. I think I will be using it from now on for my coloured pencil work. :)

This piece was create with Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils and Prismacolour Premier coloured pencils on Stonehenge paper.

It is framed and matted in a 20 ½ x "20 ½ " IKEA RIBBA black frame.

The price is $525.00 and includes the frame and matt. Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece. Shipping is additional.

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Painting at the Preston Towne Market this Thursday

This Thursday I will be painting at the Preston Towne Market to help advertise the art event, A Day & A Night. Please come out, say hi and get some local fresh food and flowers from the vendors.
Time: 9am to 2pm
Where: Central Park in the Preston Downtown Core (corner of King E. and Argyle) Cambridge.
Hope to see you there!

Num nums (Squirrel)

This graphite piece was created from a photo taken by the very talented photographer Kathy Waybrant. She very generously gave me permission to use her photo to create this piece.

This piece is framed and matted in a 20 ½ "20 ½ " IKEA RIBBA black frame.

This piece is $375.00 and includes the frame. Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece.

Shipping is additional.

In other news I will be updating my blog at least every Wednesday. That way I have a somewhat predictable blog schedule.

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Art Show at Steph's Cafe in Hespeler

I am pleased to announce that my artwork is now on display at Steph's Cafe in Hespeler, Cambridge, Ontario. :D

This is my first public solo show so I am very excited about it.  So if you have time, please head down to Steph's Cafe to check it out. :)

Steph's Cafe:
2 Queen St East
Hespeler, Ontario
(519) 260-0782

Just a reminder that my work is still on display at The Grand Cafe in Galt, Cambridge, Ontario. So if you have not seen this awesome group show yet, make sure you do before it is over (the show ends July 14th). :D

As usual, thanks for reading this and cheers!

Little Princess

This is my sister's beautiful Himalayan/Ragdoll cat, Yuki. She is my sister's little princess.

Yuki is usually a very skittish cat, but this one day she was chillin in a box and she actually let me take a photo of her.  Now I need to draw my sister's other cat Hermi someday. :)

11 ½" x 11 ½" ; Steadtler Mars Lumograph pencils on Strathmore Bristol vellum surface paper and coloured pencils; 15 hours

This piece is framed and matted in a RIBBA IKEA black frame.

This piece is $300.00 and includes the frame. Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece. 

Shipping is additional. 

Thanks for reading this and cheers!

Painting at Puslinch Lake during the Lakeside Living 2014 Home Tour

I had so much fun painting at the Lakeside Living 2014 Home Tour today. Thanks so much to all the great people who came out, to Donna O Krafka and Jennifer Depencier for organizing a day of painting, and to Birdena and Dave for graciously allowing me to paint their beautiful property. 

Today I decided to really be spontaneous with the help of Karlyn Holman's techniques. I am so happy with the results.

Tomorrow I will sign, document and properly photograph them.

Thanks for reading this!

Time to move on

So I decided to re-due this piece again but in watercolour. I kinda ruined the first version that was done in pencil crayon. Whoops!

I am really struggling with this one, so for now, I am going to put this one aside and move on. I obsess too much over one piece to the point where it saps all the fun and creativity out of it.

I also wanted to inform all of you that Brenda Murray, Cathy Amos and myself run a local urban sketching group and we recently had an article about our group published in the Record (our local news paper).

Check it out: http://www.therecord.com/news-story/4432413-visual-story-telling-artists-join-kw-urban-sketchers-to-sketch-moment-in-community-s-life/

If you feel like joining us for some sketching, you can join our facebook group or you can look at our blog to see upcoming events: http://kwurbansketchers.blogspot.ca/

Keep on creating and cheers!

Work in progress as of February 27th

This one is taking me a LONG time, and a lot of patience, but I am happy with the way it is looking. I want this one to look amazing because this piece is meant to honour my grandfather who recently passed away.  But I think for future pieces, I will do a watercolour under painting first, then coloured pencil on top. If a piece takes a long time to finish, I get frustrated and it becomes really difficult for me to finish. But if I use watercolour first, it should help to speed up the process.

Also, check out my other accomplishment; my first spent Prismacolor pencil crayon! I know that it is silly, but for me, this is a milestone because it shows how much art I have been creating. So yeah me! I must celebrate these little achievements, yeah know.

Thanks for reading! 

Work in Progress as of February 26th

I just wanted to post and let everyone know that I am still alive and to share what I have been working on. Since my new style and medium is so time consuming, I figured that I should start posting my work as it progresses, instead of just posting finished pieces. Otherwise, my blog posts will be few and far between, which believe it or not, I am trying to get away from. Plus, I like seeing artwork evolve over time, and my hope is that you will too. 

Sorry about the bad photo, but I figured a quick photo is better than no photo at all. So for my works in progress, you will be getting quick photos. But more updates too, so yeah! 

This is coloured pencil on Canson Matt board. 

Thanks for reading and any questions or comments are always welcome. :D 

Blush

I am very happy with this one. Partly because I love roses, and partly because I really pushed myself and it paid off. I have attempted creating art from this reference photo before, but it did not look anywhere near this good.

This piece has been donated to the Arti Gras 2014 party that supports access to the arts in the City of Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. It will be auctioned and hopefully it will raise a bit of money. Proceeds from the event enable a wide variety of arts programs and activities in the community including arts programming for all ages, free concerts, the Cinesreies film program, school programs for children and opportunities for access for those with special needs.

6" x 6"; Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils and Faber Castell Polychromos on Strathmore Bristol vellum surface paper; 8.5 hours

Hershey

This little miniature pony's name is Hershey. I was visiting him to try to get a good photo of his two month old colt, but the little dude did not want to pose for me. But when I turned around there was Hershey, talking and eating. So I snapped the shutter and got this cute photo. Although I did not accomplish my original goal, the photo of him rocks, so I obviously had to paint it!  Also, the following week, his mane was trimmed, and I find the scruffy look charming on him. 

This was done with coloured pencil crayons. I have not touched coloured pencil crayons in five years. But it was the first medium that I tried out of high school. In fact, Andrew purchased a box of premier Prismacolor pencil crayons, and a book about pencil crayons for my first birthday as a married couple. Even back then, he was so supportive and amazingly thoughtful. 

For those of you who were waiting to see this piece, thanks for you patience. Spraying it and photographing it was not easy. But it is finally photographed and protected! Yeah me!

$200.00, 6" x 6"; Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils and Faber Castell Polychromos on Strathmore Bristol vellum surface paper; 30 hours

Please email me if you are interested in purchasing this piece. 

Dad

This is a portrait of my Dad. This is the first portrait I completed in my drawing class taught by Sanela Dizdar at the Uptown Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario. It is pretty cool how my Dad and I are taking Sanela's class together.

My Dad is an artist, and art is a big part of my life because of him. I was always fascinated by his ability to create such beauty on a flat surface. It was like a magic trick that I never grew tired of watching. I loved spending time with him in his studio and watching him paint. For health reasons, my Dad can no longer produce much art, but he is still a great inspiration to me.

11" x 14"; Steadtler Mars Lumograph pencils on Strathmore Bristol vellum surface paper; 15 hours

My little Star

This is a graphite portrait on paper of my sweet little dog Star. I am soooooooooo happy with this piece. Never have I been able to do fur in so much detail and so realistically. I thank my drawing teacher Sanela Dizdar for patiently guiding me through this piece. She helped bring me to a whole new level of drawing. I even had to re-due it three times, LOL. But I learned so much and it was so worth it.

11" x 14"; Steadtler Mars Lumograph pencils on Strathmore Bristol vellum surface paper; 30 hours

Stapler Seven Forty Seven

One day I was feeling very blah and had my head down at the computer desk. When I looked up, I saw my Swingline stapler. I had looked at it many times before, but I had never REALLY looked at it. I had never noticed the numbers on it's front, nor how cool it looked. So I had to draw it. I am pleased with the final product. :)

This is also the first piece created with graphite on canvas using the techniques taught to me by my drawing teacher Sanela Dizdar. I feel this piece is a great improvement from my other graphite on canvas pieces. :)

If you are interested in owning this piece, it is thirty dollars at the Waterloo Community Arts Centre (the Button Factory) in Waterloo Ontario. This pieces was donated to them and all of the proceeds from the sale of this piece go towards art programs at the Button Factory. Although part of me wishes that they would sell the artwork for a bit more. But oh well.

5" x 7"; pencil, on gallery wrapped canvas; about 8 hours

Sketch from January 4th

I am taking an urban sketching class this winter. So far it has been very inspiring and fun. The above sketch was done at the Grand River Transit Bus terminal walkway during the first class. It was nice to be able to sketch the outside from inside a building (the weather was a bit chilly). I am proud of myself for not using any pencil on this sketch. I just jumped right in with my marker. Yeah for me!

Thanks for reading!

9" x 12"; Sharpie ultra fine point permanent marker on 80lb acid-free paper; 1 hour 30 minutes