Black and White Rooster-Days 16 and 17

© Ellen Blonder

I'm adding details to the plants on the left side of the painting.

 

Black and White Rooster-Days 13, 14, 15

© Ellen Blonder

I've been working short periods on this all week, and some of the time has been spent overpainting details I didn't like. The painting still has a long way to go.

Dog Repair

© Ellen Blonder

Mice got into this stuffed dog, a prototype I designed to present to a toy manufacturer years ago. If it had been a stuffed pillow, I would have tossed it in the garbage, but this guy looked so sad I ran him through the washer and dryer and repaired him. He still has a few loose threads, but I hope that just gives him character.

Black and White Rooster-Day 12

© Ellen Blonder

 All I know is the pink's way too bright here, and it looks all wrong with the rooster's red comb. I have to tone these way down. I've also added grass under the rooster's feet.

Apropos of Nothing

© Ellen Blonder

I didn't paint today, but I did go through a lot of old files, and I came across this silly sketch. 

I'm combing through years' worth of files of old work, and I've been a bit unsettled by how much work I did that I forgot about completely. I also couldn't help but see how much more we all rely on the computer for presentations, rather than slow, detailed pencil sketches. Computer-based art is slicker and more accurate, but I wonder if something's lost, too, from skipping the painstaking drawing.

Black and White Rooster-Days 10 and 11

© Ellen Blonder

I'm almost done with the feathers--finally! Now that the rooster is nearly finished, it'll be fun to move on to the flora.

Black and White Rooster-Days 8 and 9

© Ellen Blonder

Ok, I have to confess it has been a distracting week moving myself back into my studio from a temporary set-up in my house. I've barely had time to paint all week, but I scanned a detail of the rooster's feathers that I've been working on. The lighter feathers are only half finished, and the darker feathers will be detailed more, too.

Black and White Rooster-Day 7

© Ellen Blonder

I painted out the foliage above the rooster's back, and will add something later. Meanwhile, I'm moving on to feathers before tightening up flora.

Black and White Rooster-Day 6

© Ellen Blonder

Still refining shapes and colors, with nothing really finished yet.

Black and White Rooster-Day 5

© Ellen Blonder

Back to work after nursing a cold all week. I'm slowly building each color to see relative values; it's too hard to guess them correctly if I go straight to finish against a white background.

Black and White Rooster-Day 4

© Ellen Blonder

 After transferring the foliage layout to the board, I laid down some rough color as a sort of road map. It really helps to paint when the background isn't a deceptive white.

Black and White Rooster-Day 3

© Ellen Blonder

I'm working on tracing paper before transferring the plant shapes onto the board and refining them further.

Black and White Rooster-Day 2

© Ellen Blonder

I worked over a photo of the rooster painting in Photoshop, layering rough color and shapes of the plants I might want to use.

Black and White Rooster-Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

I've been trying to get to start painting this rooster for a while, ever since he posed for many photographs earlier this year in Kauai. While most of the roosters have coppery feathers, this guy is all stylish ivory, black and red. I'm painting on an 18 x 18-inch masonite board.

Another Charlie Sketch-Day 2

© Ellen Blonder

Charlie looks one way when he's upside down, but I sketched this with his face right-side up, and he kept looking like he was floating. So here he is again, after I played with him in Photoshop, floating over a photo taken along a trip to southern California.

 

 © Ellen Blonder

Another Charlie Sketch-Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

I can't get enough of this cat. He's fond of lying on his back, but stay tuned to see what happens.