New cartoon pet portraits

I painted this cartoon of my Boston Terrier, Sissy, as an example of the cartoon portraits I will be offering. Anyone who wants a cartoon painting done of their pet will be able to choose from a selection of cartoon styles, poses, backgrounds, and accessories. For Sissy I included a bone, which was her favorite toy, and a butterfly as she enjoyed chasing the flying insects around the backyard.

This cartoon portrait is painted on a thin but rigid archival canvas board, my standard canvas for commissioned pieces. High-quality reference photographs of the pet are not needed for cartoon portraits. More than one pet can fit on an 11" X 14" canvas. For current prices and other information, head over to my Order Info page.

Here is Sissy's cartoon portrait beside a painterly portrait I painted of her in 2014. I used the old portrait to get the colors and markings right on the cartoon.

Random Project of the Week - Maximilian sunflower

I got the idea for this Escheresque drawing a couple weeks ago and I finally put it on paper last week. The drawing goes from an outline on the left to a shaded graphite drawing in the middle to a full-color marker drawing with shadows on the right. It was fun experimenting with transitions between mediums, color, and detail.

Random Project of the Week - Pink Floydian painting

Here's the long story behind this Project of the Week: I invited my brother to paint with me on one of my cheap, warped canvases one day, and we decided to paint a raven with the moon in the background in a loose style. After maybe a couple of hours and making a rather large mess our finished product was... not what I had envisioned. In fact, the painting was plain awful. It wasn't my brother's fault; he did what I told him to do. My color choices and design, the craft paint, everything was just bad. I decided to cover the whole canvas in black paint so we would never see that terrifying painting again (that was very satisfying!), but then I had to figure out what to do with a large black canvas. A few weeks later (Or months? I don't remember - time flies!) I thought of something with a black background that would be fun to paint - The Dark Side of the Moon album art. And this is what I came up with!

Random Project of the Week - Artwork with lettering

Last week's random project was a painting/collage with lettering. I actually didn't create this piece last week, but I did apply the varnish to it a few days ago. I used the definition of the word "hobby" to remind myself that my hobbies are supposed to be fun and make me happy instead of being frustrating because I can't do them perfectly or because they become competitive.

 

For the sheet music I copied a page out of a book using the copy machine then aged the normally bright white copy paper using paint and water and by tearing one edge. Gluing it to the canvas didn't go quite as planned, though; I couldn't seem to flatten out all the wrinkles. It...was my first time...

This was my second painting with lettering and I would like to do more in the future. Below is my first painting with lettering I made a few months ago.

From the Sketchbook - Fun with toned paper

I recently bought this pad of brown sketch paper and a white pen and I had a lot of fun using them to draw these dog cartoons...except when I was trying to get that terrible white pen to work. 👎 I used the white pen and a white pencil for the highlights, a couple shades of gray from my Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen set for the shading, and my good ol' Zebra Sarasa gel pen for the outlines.

New set of markers! (or pens...or markers...or...?)

Updated on 9/15/21

I like to play with markers occasionally, but I only ever used the cheap kinds like Sharpies and Bic Mark-its... Until now! I finally decided to buy some artist grade markers. I went with Faber-Castell's PITT Artist Pens after reading about their excellent lightfastness ratings.

I've been playing with my new set of PITT Artist Pens for a little while now and I am liking them so far. Most of the pens I bought have brush nibs and they are more like markers (well, they are markers... right?). The brush nibs are somewhat flexible and they feel nice and smooth on paper. They can produce thick and thin lines, but I also bought some pens with the 0.7 mm and 0.3 mm nibs for even thinner lines.
  

My first test with these pens was to see how they blended (I really wanted markers that blend!). I first tried blending using a waterbrush. The India ink in these pens is water-based, so I was able to wet it and use it like watercolors, but the ink dried a little too quickly around the edges and didn't blend cleanly. I then tried layering and using different shades of color in between like I usually do with my Bic markers. That's when I discovered that if another pen is rubbed into ink that has already been applied to the paper it will eventually moisten the ink enough that the two colors will blend nicely.
 
It will take some experimentation to find the right paper. I found that the ink is super moist and can ruin the surface of some papers when blending and layering (I initially used 18 lb. marker paper). I had to use a heavier paper, but even on 140 lb. mixed media paper, the ink can get a little too moist if the pens are layered too many times. Also, the ink can be "reactivated" on certain papers more easily than others. When using these pens with watercolors, I found that 100% cotton watercolor paper by Bee Paper works well, but I must be patient and wait for the ink to dry completely to avoid smudging.

Here are the pros and cons for me:

Pros:

• Ink flow is consistent and drawing is smooth
• Colors can be mixed and blended to some degree
• Recently dried ink can be remoistened for blending
• Waterproof when allowed to dry thoroughly on certain papers
• Mistakes can be partially erased using water if the ink is not allowed to dry thoroughly
• Ink does not bleed through paper (unless too much ink is applied on thin paper)
• Ink is "pH-neutral" and "extremely lightfast" (they say - I haven't tested this myself)

Cons:

• Ink is too moist to allow for much blending and layering on thinner paper
• Recently dried ink can be smudged with another pen or sweat from your hand
• Brush nibs can fray with only moderate use
• For some of the pens, the color on the barrel does not match the color of the ink

Bic Mark-it markers vs. Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pens
 I am able to mix my own colors using the PITT Artist Pens
while the Bic markers can only be layered.

Overall I'm happy with my new pens (markers?) and I look forward to playing with them some more. I even made a video of the creation of my first larger pieces using them.