Month of Love 2015

Well another February has ended which means I have a bunch of new art from the 3rd annual Month of Love challenge!

A few things changed this year. I made a new website and switched platforms to Tumblr, which I think looks much nicer for our purposes. It was a really great year with some of the best overall quality of art yet! You can check out all the beautiful work, the challenges and the stories at http://monthofloveart.com/. 



I am also pleased that we were able to partner with Every Day Original this year and offer many of our originals for sale in one place! You can check them out at http://www.everydayoriginal.com/month-of-love/. 

Without further ado: here are my favorite pieces from this year's challenge:

Lady Nautilus and Companion
for the "Love is all Around" challenge
5 x 7 oil on panel
available for purchase from Every Day Original

"Lilith"
For the "Forbidden Fruit" challenge
5 x 7 oil on panel
available for purchase from Every Day Original 



"Halloween Jack"
For the "Diamonds" challenge
Watercolor

"Calamity's Child"
For the "Diamonds" challenge
Watercolor

"The Wolf and the Lamb"
For the "Love your Neighbor" challenge
16 x 20
charcoal
Some favorites by my friends. Clockwise from top left:
  Goni Montes, Wylie Beckert, Winona Nelson, Angela Rizza, Carly Mazur 

Holiday Card

I decided to do a little experimenting with my holiday card this year. I've been seeing so many artists I love doing neat things with adding metallic leaf to their work that I had to give it a try. I also wanted to see what would happen if I started with a watercolor under-painting and then do a little work with oil on top. (partly for speed and partly to play with texture/translucence) There was a lot about this experiment that I really liked and I can't wait to do it a little more. It's a difficult effect to reproduce (I tried to replicate it somewhat with an animation at the bottom) but I love the quality of the original.

pencil drawing

watercolor layer

Bouquet 1
watercolor, oil and silver-leaf on paper.







Spectrum Live sketches

Even though it's already been weeks since Spectrum Live, it is still fresh on my mind. The people I met, the art I saw, the presentations I took pages of notes in... it was 3 days of inspiration packed joy for this little fantasy artist. I am now on vacation but I wanted to share a few sketchbook highlights from the weekend before May fades too much.


Playing around with adding color to a quick plane sketch. I need to get more involved in this sort of experimenting in my sketchbook.


This guy was keeping watch outside our window. How appropriate! I think we all got sketches of him.


Lauren Panepinto- Art Director and master legging wearer.She likes when artists put watermarks on their art for easy locating. Fun fact: Her pinterest is a black hole of awesome that will suck hours from your life and leave you wanting more. 

Kim Boekbinder

Not too long ago I discovered the music of the very talented Kim Boekbinder and have since become a big fan. Not only do I love her songs, but she is a work of art herself and a very fun girl to draw and paint. Here's a little watercolor piece I finished recently and hopefully just the first of many. We may figure out a way to use the art to help her raise money for her album, so check back for details.



Original drawing: