acrylic cat

I decided to have another go at my acrylics the other day, but couldn't resist adding some watercolor in the backround.
Im enjoying cats at the moment so here is another.

Art with the flu

Ugh.. I woke up yesterday feeling terrible. I have a summer head cold. Why is feeling sick, even worse on a 36 degree day? The worse thing is feeling so tired, with no energy. I just dont have time to be sick!

I have opened two little cyber stores on www.madeit.com.au/artbysonya  and on Etsy. You can find me there at www.etsy.com/shop/animalartbysonya.

I am busy trying to get a good dozen or more paintings out to show. The good thing is, within 2 days I sold 2 paintings already and I am super happy about it.

I have been working on this beautiful tabby cat the last few days, and here is my progress.

Im not sure if you can see it, but I have layed down a wash of very light color to begin with.

Here is the next stage. I have added some color to the nose and eyes and added my dark fur stripes.

Starting to work on the eyes with more watercolor, working on the fur on the body and adding in the whiskers.

Now working in prisma color pencil and adding work to the eyes and more fur details. Next step will be coming back with more watercolor.

A closer look at the eye. Watercolor and prisma's.

Well thats it for now, Im just a little to sick to continue at the moment and I want to do this gorgeous cat justice, so Ill be back soon to show the finished painting in a day or so.

Hugs, Sonya
XXX

Update- Feeling better after a good days sleep LOL and finished the next morning.

Playful colors

Today I finished my cute playful elephant watercolor. She's such a gorgeous girl playing with her elephant sized ball. LOL. I just had to do her in bright colorful colors, just like any child would like.

what fun....

Sonya

XXX



Watercolor puppies

In the last few days I have been developing my watercolor style. I am absolutely loving watercolor paints. I enjoy their translucence, their ability of color building and I love the way they sometimes behave very unpredictable. I am still however, wanting to develop my own style within the the medium, so I came up with these two more paintings.
In the first painting I added quite a bit of prisma color pencil, and ended up with this:

Finished except for a little tidying up and blending with the purple prismas to be done.

The next little pup is a jolly fellow so I want to add some bright colors to him with oranges and reds.
Again a different style to my previous paintings, with just a little prisma color this time.

Im really happy with how this fellow turned out as well. So i guess my question is coming, to establish myself should I stick to one 'style ' of painting or is it okay to to do many. Most established artists I see, really develop the one style of painting and stick to it. Hmm, what do you think and what is your style. When did you realise you had found it?

Sonya
XXX

Watercolor, watercolor, watercolor

Oh, I have had fun today. I was lucky enough to have 2 days off of work so I spent the day at my art desk.




 As you know I have been playing with watercolors as of late and managed to finished this cute little labrador puppy before the kids made it home from school.

step 1: the underpainting



Step 2: adding the first watercolors



Step 3: Many layers of paint later. Just some tidying up to do.

Finished at last!

A beautiful labrador puppy. I hope you like her.

Sonya
XXX

Art in 2013

Wow it's February 2013, where has time gone?
What have I been up to. Well, I have to admit after that huge cougar painting my artist juice was completely exchausted!
I took a well deserved rest and I think my mind just became numb. LOL.
Christmas was approaching fast, school was ending for the kids and up approached the busiest time at work at the bed and breakfast pavilions.
I have to admit I just didn't have the time or the energy for any art at all:(

On a brighter note, it is now a brand new exciting year. I have recovered from the silly season, kids are back at school at last and thankfully, I have a few more days off of work.
I started my first watercolor painting this year and I am just letting it dry while I write this.

I decided to paint a absolutley adorable ginger kitten. Now I am not really a cat person however, I mean not that I hate cats, but I'm just a dog owner basically. But for some reason I just love kitten pictures. Who wouldn't though? I mean they are so cute, fluffy and big eyed. Adorable. So I have decided to paint a few in some loose watercolor and prisma pencil. It's been a while since I picked up a pencil and paintbrush but I just kept telling myself to keep it loose and not to worry if it didnt turn out. So far so good.

I'll be sure to post a picture as soon as Ive finished her.

Sonya
XXX

Update: Here she is finished!

A change of Direction

Hi All,
I have been working so hard this past year to establish myself as an artist. I have gone through so many phases and spent so many hours on the net surfing, reading and learning as much as I possibly can.
Living in a small country town in South Australia doesn't offer too many great real life art classes, so the net is a blessing. Without the knowledge of thousands of other artists willing to teach their skills, I wouldn't be anywhere closer to my goal in such a time.
I guess like many of us 'arty types' when we first begin, we really don't know what direction to go and we basically start where we feel most comfortable.
For me this was whimsical style drawings and paintings. Here is an example of how I begun.


The Queen of Hearts Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland'

I have always wanted to paint portraits, but found I just wasnt ready for that type of skill, so I started with several lessons by Adriana Almanza at www.dolldreams.ning.com practising how to achieve whimsical style paintings with big heads, and big eyes. Lots of fun, and I learnt what I needed - how to shade a face with light and shadows and the basics of how to make hair come alive.
This is a fun site and a great lot of ladies there all willing to give praise and advise and regular swaps of art is always on the agenda.
However it was time for me to move on.
I finally took the plunge and painted my first 5 HUGE portraits. The first two were of my two daughters and although they have a nice resemblance, I'm just not happy with them. The next was my best friends daughter, Madeline, and it was the best portrait I had achieved so far. Everyone absolutely loves it and I'm quite happy with the finished result.
Next was my husband, I knew this would be a hard one, as he is very judgimental on himself, however surprisingly he absolutely loves it and I have had numerous great comments on his portrait that now sits above my art desk.
After a few more portraits, one of myself in watercolor in my last post, a couple of more whimsical paintings with mixed media, a couple of landscapes in oil paints, I feel that I have come a long way...but... where do I want to go?
Well I dont know if this is where I stay but I have to say I have begun a cougar painting in oils and a cat painting in colored pencil and I am having the best time ever! I am really really enjoying animals. I love painting the fur which some people would find absolutely monotemous (Hope I spelt that right LOL) but I find it calming. The cougar I am painting at the moment has taken me the most time I have ever spent on any painting. i work on it everyday and so far its been about two weeks.
My ultimate goal is achieving realism and to do so it takes many many layers of painstaking little hairs one at a time basically. As the days go by slowly  my cougar is jumping off  the canvas and into the room.
As I look at him, I feel I may have finally found my destination as an artist.
In this blog i will try to keep uptodate with his progress and all my other art in future as a jounal of my journey to becoming what I call a real artist. Its funny because when I sold my first painting I was so excitied I straight away telephoned my best friend and gushed, "Im finally an artist I sold a painting today!" and her reply was, "Sonya you already were an artist". Its so hard to call oneself an artist without ever having other artists recognision or ever having sold anything, so to hear it from someone elses mouth other then your own was lovely to hear.

So from now on this blog will be changed a little, to more of step by step recording of my paintings. I hope you still come here to visit and watch my journey to see where it brings me.

Cougar Progress:

In the first stages. Pictured with my reference photo. I signed up for a course with this one, but its taught in acrylics not oil paint like mine. I took a rundown of the tips etc but have given up on the lessons and am going with my gut feeling and painting in the way it suits me. I just cant work step by step following instructions, its too frustrating. Im going out solo with this one.
 Just working in the undercoat of lighter and darker fur. No real hairs as such. Very rough so far.



Here you can see Im starting to put in individual hairs in various colors to the upper cheek and i have added another wash to his eye to make it glassy looking and added the highlights. I have also added the soft fur for his eyebrow.

More hairs have been added to his muzzle area and I have worked on his chin area. You can see the difference its making from the body and upper and right hand side of the head which still needs doing. Many more layers of paint still need to be applied when dry to achieve the realism I want to achieve.

The nose is still in the undercoat colors as well.

What are your thoughts of my new direction in wildlife realism? i would love to hear from you and where is your art taking you?



A new find -Watercolor

Im always searching for new techniques, styles and things to paint. I guess that is what keeps me going. If I get bored with one thing, I try another for awhile. It works for me to keep my creative juices flowing.

Lately I discovered watercolor. I was not too sure at first, but as soon as I put brush to paper I fell in love.
Painting was so relaxing, I felt so calm and it was so much fun. for some reason I didnt feel a great pressure to produce a great portrait. It actually turned out better then I ever thought possible.
I LOVE WATERCOLOR PAINTS!!

I managed to finally do a self portrait and my very first still life painting.

This was done with my daughter's $2.00 paint box! It's the only watercolor I have at the moment before my new
Windsor Newton paints arrive.



Stilllife- Mandarin Orange -also with a $2 paintbox.



Glass is so hard to photograph without reflections!Urg.

SOLD!

I am so absolutely gobsmacked to have found out my painting `Carefree` sold within 6 hours of listing it in my new store. I could'nt stop smiling all day long. I dont think I could have ever have dream't of a better outcome.
It has really given me a great big boost of confidence as well. Amazing...
I have also just listed another painting I have been working on the past 2 weeks, called Remember me.
Here is a sneak peak at the making of her.

Here you can see I have done some stencilling texture in green, red and orange and added some printed papers.

Now I have begun the face and arm using water soluble oil paints

My inspiration came from a vintage postcard. I just love these style of vintage little girls!

Here she is all finished with her pretty little birdie!

whimsical paintings on the go

Great day to you!
As writing this I am listening to Dog Days are Over, sung over by The Voice Australia star, Lakyn Heperi.
The lyrics read "The dog days are over, the dog days are gone"
Well I am starting to feel this inside myself. I have been slowly tugging along with my painting and feel like I have finally found myself. It's taken some time and practise, practise, practise. I can't emphasis that enough!
I have been painting daily, for hours, for the past 6 months. My journey has had its ups and downs, times when I have felt like giving up, and definetely times when I have thrown works away.
Today I woke up and finally realised I am where I want to be.
I mean I will always have works of art that Im not quite happy with but for the first time I have realised I REALLY like what I am producing.
To celebrate with the back up of my family and dear friends I have opened my online store on the
Madeit site which is an art and craft handmade store. My actually shop is here:
                                                      www.madeit.com.au/artbysonya
I am so proud to have listed my first two canvas paintings.
So here is a sneak peak of them and if your interested further please check out my new shop!

Carefree - 19.5" X 15.5" Canvas

A mixed media canvas using acrylic paints, papers, napkins, paper doily, textures, and ink pens.

Out in the poppies - 16" x 16" canvas

A mixed media canvas using acrylic paints, paper napkin, stencil texture and ink pens.

If you would like to see more photos please visit my online store where both are available for purchase.