nfsAnd back to the around-the-house wildlife. I really do hope we'll be moving out in the country somewhere when our lease comes up... at the end of March. Life is about to get really outrageously busy for a while.
#1154
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Beaver Skull Sketch
nfsI'm glad this is just a sketch! The idea was to show something that really, really wasn't a cow skull in the traditional cow skull way, but it just ended up looking weird :-/
#1154
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Cat Skull Sketch
nfsAh, the things that hang around an artist's house... the teddy bear yesterday was Nugget's. This is one of the million things I have around the house that I really want to paint, but it's a hard one to pose.
#1153
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Ocelot WIP
18"x24"wip
I hope I'm not jinxing this by showing an in-progress shot- that's what usually happens, but these cats were just so irresistably beautiful I jumped right in on the painting..... and the spots were so crazy that I had to do a pretty detailed drawing!
#1151
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Elephant Sketch
nfsFinally putting some paint down! I was amzed by how red the rhinos and elephants were- I guess because of dusting themselves in the red North Carolina clay.
#1150
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Lemur Sketch II
nfsI think I'm starting to get more comfortable with the critter sketches.... It's messed up, you'd think that if you can draw you can draw anything, but nope. At least not for me.
#1149
Monday, February 21, 2011
Lemur Sketch
nfsAnd a lemur sketch. They're really cool little critters... like little cat people or something. Hyperactive cat people.
#1148
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Bobcat Sketch
nfsWent to the zoo today! It was so much fun.... I'll probably be sketching from that all this week... way outside of my comfort zone! The bobcats were one of my favorites, probobly because the tiny princess kept calling them kitties and trying to pet them through the glass :)
#1147
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Canada Geese
6"x8"Enjoyed yesterday's so much... the water looks warmer today, though. Yay, springtime!
#1143
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Canada Goose
6"x8"Something from the trip to Duke Gardens the other day- isn't that green fantastic? And it's nice doing a picture of something different...
#1142
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Wolfsbane
12"x16"And a skull piece. I love painting bone, and skulls are pretty much universally beautiful. The teeth will drive you absolutely up the wall, trying to get the details right (what was I thinking posing the lower jaw like that) but the eye sockets are always so gracefully formed it brings everything back together again :)
#1140
Ultramarine
9"x12"Sorry this is getting posted a day late! The tiny princess is still being high maintenance, poor thing.... she's in the living room trying to wake her Daddy up from a nap on the couch right now. Yep, I'm having a super-romantic Valentine's Day :)
I LOVE doing these reliquary pieces! Mad time-consuming, but so complete and meaningful-feeling....
#1139
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Evening on the Sound
8"x10"Still missing summer. It's supposed to be in the seventies this time next week, though, so there's hope....
Oh, and this is really exciting! North Carolina State University did an article about me and my art (my art and I?) and if you'd like to check it out, here's the link: http://www.ncsu.edu/www/ncsu/design/sod5/designlife/2011/01/27/alumni-profile-kellie-marian-hill/
#1137
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Sunshine
12"x16"available
And another one I realized I hadn't shared, and absolutely had to. I'm thinking about changing the light on the vertical foreground, making it seem more... I dunno, just better somehow, and maybe adding some detail to other parts of the peel, but the orange peel that is obviously the focal point, that curve that jumps out at you.... isn't that so much fun! I love how the texture came out!
#1135
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Walking Tall
6"x18"sold
I was digging around in the computer (trying to be a little more organized, though I know that to be a basically hopeless case....) and realized that somehow I never shared this piece with you guys! Simply had to remedy that situation :)
#1134
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sea Glass and Key Shadow
9"x12"I love doing these detail-oriented pieces! Like where the wood is weathered, where your fingers would rub against it as you turned the key to unlock the box? And the bubbles in the glass sphere? And the scars and age on the wood, and the way you can actually tell the wood in the background is pine? Oh, that stuff makes me so happy!
Yes, I'm a total dork. I know.
But it is cool, letting a painting evolve like this. Like the blue color of the box? Total surprise to me- I just kept glazing and experimenting and tinkering until suddenly it felt right, you know?
#1133
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Blue
6"x8"Yes, I'm posting in the middle of the Superbowl. Don't worry, Dearly Beloved is calling the Baby and I in for the particularly funny commercials :)
This dog just makes me smile. And I'm so glad I went ahead with the stripes on the ears- it just didn't click until that point, curiously enough....
#1131
Saturday, February 5, 2011
One Little Lady Apple
6"x6"And back to those adorable little apples! Anyone have any idea what the rules are for germinating apple seeds? I'm sure this is incredibly silly of me, but I'm saving the seeds :)
#1131
Friday, February 4, 2011
Silver Ball
6"x8"hm.... I'm doing some revisiting of themes here, aren't I? I don't think that's a bad thing, though if anyone has anything they'd particularly like to seen done as a daily I'd probably appreciate the ideas :D
#1130
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tea Portrait II - The Maypole
6"x8"sold
Hello, everybody! Prettiest day ever... I know spring isn't here, but it sure feels like it! Maybe this title came from a bit of premature spring fever... but I think it was the floral pattern of the teacup circling around the upright of that wonderful spoon.
If you've got a thing for tea, I recently discovered a fun blog all about it- actually, she discovered me, but I'm following her now too :) http://teatimetales.blogspot.com/
#1128
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Tea Potrait I - Walking Softly
6"x8"sold
Hellooooo, February! This is one part of a two part commission (I'll be sharing the pther part tomorrow) that I really wanted to share- they just came out so well! I've never painted the little painted-on floral details that come on teacups sometimes, and I was scared to death of it this time, but... it's a nice feeling, doing those details. Making it a for-real portrait of the particular teacup with the for real spoon that goes with it....
#1127
Monday, January 31, 2011
Lemon in Harmony
5"x7"v mc m j h xcvmxc,dxc;szdxjcnfhgkg nnukikjrtgdzsghnk.lk,klyjh igo tttttu 6re4ty6568
That was Nugget's contribution to the post, if you were wondering. An I always mean to post early in the day, but it never actually happens....
Anywho. I'm loving this one- that pink was so much fun, and it works so well with the brightness of the lemon....
#1126
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Full Moonlight
6"x6"It was a beautiful day, the sort of day that makes you believe that springtime is here, now, right at the end of January. I wish. We went to Duke Gardens today, first trip of the year, and that was wonderful.... and here's some pretty moonlight to keep the day going :)
#1125
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Silver Skull III
6"x8"I tried to come up with a creative title for this one, honest.... ok, gotta go, Nugget is squawking at me :(
Friday, January 28, 2011
Backlit Lemon
6"x8"Much better! Nothing I'd do in my bigger pieces, it's too loose, but I think I really got the 'feel', you know?
#1123
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Apricots on Windowsill
6"x8"This one.... I dunno. But we learn from everything, that's why we do dailies, right?
#1121
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Key Shadow
6"x8"Here's a daily for you! It was inspired by a David Brega piece from back in the seventies, I saw it in this last American Art Collector and just loved the idea and tried it on my own, got a bunch of reference pics over at my parents house with an old dresser of theirs... I think you'll be seeing me use it again :D
#1121
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Hand of Time
18"x24"Sorry I missed the last couple of days! I've been all obsessed with a couple of non-dailies and haven't been doing my little bitty ones like usual.... and, well, I wanted to share these anyways :)
#1120
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Pressure and Reflection
8"x10"This piece, for me, is related to the one I shared yesterday... same size, same mostly subdued colors, and the nut-thing is from the same bin at my mechanic's :) The mirror ball you've seen before, the c-clamp is something from my parent's house...
You know how you read articles about great still life painters, and the interviewer mentions that he or she walks in the studio and sees all of these objects that seem so familiar, because they've seen them in a bunch of the artist's paintings? That's always made me smile, I guess because I know it'd be the same if someone came over here, and because it would be so, so cool to go over to the studio of a still-life painter I really admire and see the real objects and compare them to the artist's idea of them, you know? Scale and color intensity and if maybe one things has been painted so many times that it has become something entirely different in its painted life than it is in reality...
#1117
Friday, January 21, 2011
Study in Circles
8"x10"Yay for a more complex still life! The two metal washers and the dark sphere (the head off the gear shift for a lawn mower, believe it or not) are things I bummed out of my awesome mechanic's awesome bits and pieces of randomness bin while I was getting an oil change, and combining them with the beautiful little flask shaped glass vase and some water... Beautiful, and completely unexpected.
And in case you're actually wondering- no, soooo not a daily :)
#1116
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Forest Dawn
12"x24"sold
This was done as a commissioned piece- I had been wanting to paint from this particular batch of reference photos but hadn't worked up the nerve- they looked so difficult! But it was a real joy to paint, and it is happily installed in its new home now :)
#1115
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Blue Tractor
6"x8"Weird for me, I know. Really different. But I love the feel of it, and I'm thinking about trying it again, but way bigger. Like three foot by four foot. I'll let you know if I work up the nerve for it :)
#1114
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Lady Apples
3"x5"Yes, these little guys had to be shipped all the way across the country.... but they're so adorable I couldn't resist. And they're so small that Nugget will pick them up and eat them like a really tiny for-real apple! It's so cute...
#1113
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Blue Marble
2"x3"I am having way to much fun with the I-get-to-paint-tiny-little-things-on-tiny-little-canvases thing...
#1112
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Pecan Halves
2"x3"Hahaha, post number one thousand one hundred and eleven! Now wouldn't it have been cool if that had happened a few days ago on January eleventh 2011?
'nother one of those tiny little stretched canvases, so I get to paint life-sized pecan halves, which is so cool! I had an awful time keeping the baby away from them while I was working on the painting, though....
#1111
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Close Up
6"x8"I'm doing my best to bring summer back, aren't I? No, this isn't an import- I got it at the farmers market over the summer and took a bunch of reference pictures. Looks lucious, doesn't it? I think I might finally be getting a handle on how to do the stem part of an eggplant...
#1110
Friday, January 14, 2011
Broken Shell and Golden Mean
9"x12"click here for purchase information
Like a lot of artists, I'm a sucker for texture. And the broken shell idea... it has everything, right? Texture, subtle color shifts, a sense of history and place, the beautiful balance that comes with the shell itself...
The spiral thingey in the background is meant to represent the mathmatical perfection of something like this, even in its worn state. Maybe especially in its worn state. I have it framed and up on the wall in my studio right now- I'll try to post a picture of that sometime soon, it just glows :)
#1109
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuberoses Detail
2"x3"Still all icy- so not leaving the house today. I am quite certain I've gone three years here in North Carolina without seeing a flake of snow, and this is our fifth round this season! Wild.... Anywho, more wishful thinking in the form of flowers today. Even though tuberoses are more of a late summer thing...
And my tiny princess is 15 months old today. All grown up :)
#1107
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