Art for the Very Belated Birthday Girl!

A friend of mine recently had a birthday...well, not so recent, but I finally gave her her gift recently. I ended up with the flu the day of her party and missed out on all the fun. Sadly I'm just now getting her art to her, but better late than never. For her I decided to do a drawing and two paintings. One of her and her now husband, one of her two dogs, and one just words. It took me awhile to decide on which image to use for pencil and which for watercolor. Finally, I settled on color for the dogs and pencil for the happy couple. Mainly this was based on the clarity of the photos I used. If you ever have a friend that is going to do any art for you, be sure you can see the detail of the eyes. In this case, the art was a surprise so I carefully chose the images myself, but generally speaking that's my guideline for people.

Drawing is easier and less time consuming, so I decided to start with something that would keep me motivated and on task. Usually once I get going I'm wrapped up in the project, but when I'm doing a series of things, the breaks between activities can become easily distracting. 

Next, I went with a very simple "text" painting. I decided to go with black, white, and gold. I had found an Instagram post of hers where her fiance left her a funny note about coffee and decided to use that for this painting. I went with basic stripes and then gold writing over it. I had thought about mimicking his handwriting but decided to go with something simple. 

This was a very easy process. I used acrylic paint and made each stripe a one inch width.

I decided not to cover the edges of the canvas to keep that homemade feel to the work and made sure the letters weren't lined up perfectly. This is something just about anyone can do with a little patience. Cutting out the letters is definitely the most frustrating and challenging part. If you've ever cut out paperdolls, you know that minimizing the amount of small edges and corners is helpful, so stick wit ha big bold print unless you are willing to spend money on something that will cut the letters for you. 

Finally, I went on to the painting of the two dogs. Watercolor is not a wet on wet paint like oil, so there are periods of time that you have to wait for it to dry. Luckily the dogs are pretty similar colors and it was easy to bounce back and forth between their coats. Watercolor isn't an extremely difficult medium, but I would suggest purchasing a book on tips for watercolor before just jumping into it. 

Painting in progress...

I went with a green background and here is the finish product before I cut it out of the paper. 

Thankfully she loved the gift and it was a hit. They also purchased their first home recently, so my late timing worked out great! Cheers!