So for the past few weeks, I have been busily working away. I have been doing a lot of pen & ink drawings, which can mostly be seen here at my Artfire store: http://www.artfire.com/users/Jaqui You may want to check it out, I have a number of pieces that are on sale until Friday of this week, at 25% off.
I did 2 commissioned pieces, both 4 x 6, both pen & ink. I had found some watercolour postcards, and I love the weight of the paper, and how it doesn't warp when using the pen & ink. So, now I have switched to a heavier paper for the 5 x 7's as well.
Here are the 2 commissioned pieces:
This first one has an interesting story behind it. I was asked if I could be commissioned to do one for a couple of friends who were staying at a womans place for the weekend. They wanted to give her a gift, and I was happy to help with that. One of my two friends asked me what I was going to paint. I said I thought I'd do a tree, and she replied that yes, she liked the trees I've been doing. She asked what kind of tree, and I said my gut was telling me it should be an oak. She replied that yes, she likes the oak, because of the strength it has. When I was looking for reference photos, I found one with the sun shining through, and a little voice in my head said, this lady who is being gifted, needs hope, so I should do something like that. When I was done and showed it to my friend, she gasped and said how fantastic it was, but later an even more interesting story came back to me. It seemed, the giftee, needs a healing of some sort, and so indeed does need some hope. Later a third woman asked me how I did this. I started to reply, "You know, layers...." No, she wanted to know how I had decided on this picture, so I related the above story. She then told me that there was a special story with the lady who was being gifted. She wasn't allowed to tell me said story until after June 30th, because of some confidentiality issues, but she said, "What I will tell you is that the picture you have chosen to do, is a picture that shows exactly what this woman is going through, and you couldn't have chosen a more perfect picture." Cooooool! I love stories like that, and can't wait to hear the rest of it!
After seeing the first of these two pictures, another friend asked me if I would be painting more trees, and of course answered that I would be. She said she'd know the right one when I painted it. This was the next one, and she loved it, so it became hers.
I have also been busy with my abstract class, and I am in the middle of a series of 4, which I will show you once they are completed.
In the meantime, I promised pictures of the pottery that I did.
Fun to do, and not bad for my first time on the wheel since I was fourteen years old! What's that you asked? No, I'm a little older than 29.
