Christmas Kitties

A few years ago I drew these portraits of our cats as a Christmas present for Kristin, but since we've added 3 new cats to our household the set was now incomplete.  This was her Christmas present this year.

Mo (the tabby), and Trouble (the white cat) are best friends. They like to sleep in a little kitty pile and lick each other  Hellie (the black and white cat) is more of a loner, but she was my Mom's oldest and favorite cat.

"Granny's Cats"
8"x10" oil pastels and colored pencils on watercolor paper

Auntie Claws

Well... tis the season.  Time to send out Christmas cards, which is something I've never actually done before  (I know, I suck).  This year, I decided to correct this horrible transgression by diving in head first and sending cards to everyone I know.  Kristin and I teamed up to come up with a Christmas Card idea that we thought reflected our lives and I drew our very first ever custom Christmas Card.

Isn't our little household cute?
This is me on the left with Kristin on the right in Santa hats with our 6 cats pulling the sleigh.  The cats are Annie (front left), Hellie (front right), Sparks (middle left), Mo (Middle right), Kitka (back left), and Trouble (back right).  Our Angel Sooty who died a few year's ago is pictured on the sleigh and I'm wearing a purple ribbon to remember my mom.

A little Photoshop magic turned the image into this for the final product.

Front

back

We took a big risk confirming ourselves as Crazy Cat Ladies to everyone, but hey, we hang up all the pictures we get of everyone's kids screaming on Santa's lap, so they can hang up our little brood too right?
Besides, to people who know us well this won't come as any surprise.

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE (12/30/31):
Well, our first ever Christmas card effort was a success and we sent out over 100 cards!  We got many responses back from various people commenting on the card and saying how much they liked it which was really fun for me.  The best feedback however came from Kristin's 8 year old niece Arianna.  According to her mom she said that it was the best card she'd ever seen and even practiced drawing it herself.  Imitation really is the best flattery. I was honored!  Here is a picture that this little future artist drew of herself driving her own kitty sleigh.

Arianna's Sleigh
by Arianna Anderson, age 8

Nice job Arianna!  I LOVE your picture and can't wait to see more of your art work!  

Happy Halloween!

I decided that I would try again to muster up some Halloween spirit by painting a fun, festive image on our front window.  Last year's window introduced the world to the addition of our 3 new family members and I thought it was fun, so I decided to keep up the tradition by painting our 6 cats out playing in the pumpkin patch.  No people got represented this year, but let's face it, our lives are all about the cats anyway, so this is still pretty accurate :).

We also have a big family Halloween party that we host each year with soup, games, pumpkin carving, etc. and this the piñata that I made for the kids.  It was a pretty fast DIY project.  Al you need is a shoebox, an empty toilet paper roll, some colored paper and a black marker.  The kids loved it!

I feel like I should get some bonus decorating points for how amazing the fall colors in our back yard were during the party.

And... last, but not least, here is a little holiday update on the whole minion hat thing....

Riley, the kid who started it all dressed as a minion with his teacher dressed as Gru.

Me and Riley dressed as minions, with Kristin supporting the Day of the Dead.  Oddly enough, that was her required costume for work on Halloween and the face paint was done by a co-worker, so she didn't get to wear her minion hat.

Kristin's work goes all out for Halloween and each department decorates to a theme.  The décor in their area was pretty awesome!

I even helped by making the flags that hang above the alter.



If you look close you'll see that the yellow flags have skulls, the red flags say "DEAD" and the blue flags have pumpkins cut out.  It's kind of hard to see the blue with the black background, but the overall effect works.



Now... back to the minions :).

My cute niece and nephew, who occasionally play the role of my minions in real life :).

More Minions



I got four more minion hats made.  Two are for me and Kristin and the other two are my work friend Joanne and her husband.  I learned a few things after round one and was ale to make some improvements here.  The size has been adjusted so that these fit adult heads better and the center of the eyes is a little smaller and cleaner than the original version.  I also learned that an eye size adjustment is needed if you are making a minion with one eye vs. two.

I made the executive decision that there needed to be a girl minion for Joanne.  I think the pig tails turned out cute.

I also like the hair on this one better than on the first.  It is the same style, but by tying each piece off on the inside before adding the next I was able to add a little height to each strand of hair so it's not laying flat against the hat.  Much better!

Here is the top view of all the hair

And the finishing touch of a personalized label inside each one.

These hats have been approved my minions everywhere!

Minion Hat

Is handiwork art?  I'm declaring it so and adding my latest project to this blog.

Like a ton of kids right now, my 10 year old nephew is really into Despicable Me.  I decided to put my crocheting skills to the test and attempted to surprise him by making him a Minion hat.



I think the final result turned out pretty cute.

The hat started out as a one-eyed minion, and although Riley LOVED it, I thought it needed something else.



Silly kid

It was much better after adding a mouth and some blue trim around the bottom, but Riley decided that he wanted one with two eyes.  That worked out well for me because from the beginning I thought the eye was a little too big and considered replacing it.

Ta da!  The finished product.  The two smaller eyes were perfect and Riley loves his new hat.

From this top angle you can see the hair as well as the addition of the goggles in 3-D.

I've already had more requests for hats from some family and friends, so I'm working on a few more.  Stay tuned :).

Self Portrait

I've been thinking for a while that the side banner on this blog needed a self portrait.  Since I'm not really a big fan of pictures of myself, I was less than enthusiastic about putting the time and energy into actually painting a self portrait, so I decided a photo would do to fill the gap.  Since this is an art blog however, a plain photo right out of the camera wouldn't do.  So, with the help and magic of Photoshop, here is my completed self portrait.

I was inspired by this drawing by M.C. Escher to create an image where I was painting myself.

M.C. Escher is one of my all time favorite artists and I had a poster of this picture hanging in my room when I was a kid.  His art is so magical and thought provoking.  I could spend hours looking at it.  It is so mesmerizing.  I LOVE IT!!!

Here is the original photograph that I created the final image from.  It's a selfie that I took in the forest on our vacation to Seattle earlier this year.  The hand in the final product is also mine, but it came from another photograph, and the paint brush is right out of the Brighton Mural logo.

Overall, I'm happy with the final result (I think it looks a little like the cover of a paint by number kit), but if you want to see some REAL art created from a photograph, and not just someone playing around in Photoshop, you should check out the pet portraits at artpaw.com.  They are amazing works of art created by talented artist, Rebecca Collins.  As an animal lover (and multiple pet owner) I can appreciate the desire to have really high quality portraits of our furry friends that will be around forever.  She really captures something special about each of the animals in her paintings and her use of color is wonderful!  I stumbled across her website on accident and instantly became a big fan.

The Return of Lisaloons!

When I was a kid, my sister gave me one of those "how to make balloon animals" kits for my birthday.  The rest was history.  I really don't remember learning how to make my first balloon poodle (or whatever my first creation was).  It's just something I feel like I've always known how to do.  Making balloons for the neighborhood kids, the random church party or school activity was just a normal part of my childhood.  At one point in college I decided it would be a fun and easy way to make some extra money and decided to market myself as a balloon lady.  I was the entertainment for various non-profit activities, children's birthday parties, and community events.  It was fun while it lasted, but it was never intended to be a long term career move and I eventually got a real job and balloons went back to being a hobby.

Back in the day though, I had a pretty awesome get up.  I branded myself as:

LISALOONS

Pets that don't need feeding!

 

Somewhere I'm sure I have the files of my old "official" logo, business cards, etc.  If I ever find them I'll post an update.  I even had T-shirts made, the whole nine-yards!  My mom made me an awesome vest to wear at events to keep my balloons and supplies in while I worked and that seemed to draw as much attention than the balloons themselves.  It always surprised me how much people loved it (thanks Mom!).  In addition to the vest, my "uniform" consisted of a court jester hat that I would make for myself to wear as the first balloon.  It was part of my "gig."

 

It has now been more years than I care to think about since I've made balloons at an event, and even more since I've been "in business" and this random skill of mine has now become a little known secret to people who didn't know me when.

 

Getting to the point, a friend of mine just opened a new fabric store called "...and sew on" (click on the name to check it out),  and Saturday was her Grand Opening Celebration.  She asked me if I would come and make balloons at the store to draw some attention and entertain the kids while the parents shopped.  I guess by now you can tell that I accepted the invite.  It was fun brushing the dust of the vest and playing balloon lady again.  Here are some pictures of the day.

 

My friend Carolyn Bradshaw, owner of this awesome store, and her daughter (and employee) Jenna posing for the Grand Opening of "...and sew on."

 

Getting out the balloon vest brought back great memories of my mom.  The colors of my hat were selected in her memory (purple is the pancreatic cancer awareness ribbon color).

This mannequin definitely needed a head :).

 

Close up of my new business partner. 

I had a lady ask how much it cost to buy this rabbit. Cute!  She was thrilled when I just gave it to her.

 

The pink poodle... a balloon requirement.

Carolyn hard at work!

This was the first gig I think I've ever had that included a place to sit.  Sweet!  Thanks Carolyn!

Superheroes defending the store against crime!

Monkey in a tree

Love Birds

Bouquet of flowers in the candy dish.



Goodbye from Lisaloons!

Congratulations on your Grand Opening Carolyn! It was a great day.  Thanks for letting me be a part of it.



Art Lesson with Gary Squares- Part 2

Another painting got completed last night from the girls that I started to teach"Gary Squares" to earlier this month.

This is Joelette.  Look what she painted!!

Joelette is a fantastic future artist and I loved her passion for this project.  The palm leaves turned out amazing! and I love all of the colors in the sand and water.  The purple in the sky is so pretty against the shadow of the tree.  NICE JOB!!!!!

"Joelette's Beach" 12"x12" acrylic on canvas
by Joelette Organista, age 15

Old Faithful Photoshop

Last week I went to Yellowstone with my best friend and my nephew.  It was an awesome trip!  Here is one of my favorite moments...

Well, okay, maybe it wasn't a real moment, but this one was:

Kristin was taking this picture, so she wasn't in it

And so was this one:

We took this picture before we found the other sign that wasn't in front of a bunch of a trees.

Thanks to the magic of Photoshop I was able to combine these two photos to create an image where all three of us are standing in front of "Old Faithful" as it is erupting, even though we never actually posed for that picture.

This image, after I merged the two photos together, shows several places where some people appear in the photo more than once.  I had to copy some existing spectators and strategically place them in areas that would help cover up unwanted pieces of the original picture that were still visible after the merge (like my head).  Notice the couple in the green circles got flipped into a mirror image.

 The next step is to delete the guy out of the picture.

 



In this set, the bottom image is a close up the results after removing the man in the black shirt.  In the above picture, you can see where his head is blocking a row of spectators.  In order to remove it from the final picture I had to copy the group of people that you can see in the upper left hand corner of the top image, flip them, and paste them over the head in the upper right hand corner of the bottom image.

Once I was done I decided to crop the image more than I had originally planned, so I could have gotten away without doing some of the people moving work that I did at first, but oh well.  The end result is an awesome group shot.

 

Greetings from all of us in Yellowstone!

 

Art Lesson with Gary Squares- Part 1

I recently taught a small group of young women how to paint pictures using the style of painting that I leaned from Gary and John Collins that I affectionately refer to as "Gary Squares."  To make the project simpler, and so it would fit in the time frame we had, I squared everything off into 16 squares instead of 36.  I was hopeful that they would turn out well and that the reduction in squares wouldn't affect the final outcome too much.  Good call, because it totally worked!  Check out their awesome work!



This is Bryn. She painted this awesome wave.  I love how she captured the movement of the water and used purple in the lower right hand corner.  It looks fantastic!

"Bryn's Wave" 12"x12" acrylic on canvas
by Bryn Koldewyn, 14 years old

This next piece was done by the Potts' family and was a collaborative effort between a mother and her two daughters.  They each worked on different parts of it, but the end result is very cohesive.  My favorite thing about this piece is the shadow of the boat and the way the colors blend from the red trim of the boat, all the way down to the sand.  I also really like the horizon line.  Even though the entire background is essentially all blue, there is no question as to where the water ends and the sky begins.  They opted out of posing in the picture, but here is the finished piece.  Love it!

"Potts' Boat" 12"x12" acrylic on canvas
by Members of the Potts Family

There were two more future artists in the group, but they are still working on their paintings.  I will post them once they are done.

As a side note, these artist's didn't name their own pieces, so the titles I've given are subject to change if they ever do so :).