Fur In The Paint

Fleece On Earth Starry Night Sheep
8 x 10
Watercolor Pencil on suede

Embracing My Inner Illustrator
So the good news (If it could be called that) about it being a little on the slow side at Thieves was that I was able to knock out my Christmas Card for this year. (Honestly I had enough free time I could have done two.) I worked on it totally from beginning to end while at the event.

This was an idea that just came to me a few weeks back. I had no real reference other than a few sheep photos to get the drawing correct. Or at least fundamentally correct. I knew I wanted to go illustrator-ish with this, sorta like the style I did when working on my 46′ Chevy. Lots of hash marks and such. (Lordy, I do love the mark making.)

Unexpected Gifts
I really want to tell you that “I” came up with the oh so ever clever title. But alas I did not. A fellow artist who does some wonderful whimsical critter art came over and offered it up as a little pre-holiday gift from her to me. I made sure she was serious about me using the title and she said she’d “be thrilled.”

Coming Up
I stopped at the local Dick Blick while in Iowa City and bought a few new water soluble things to try out. I absolutely fell in love with watersoluble wax pastels, which will be the focus of an upcoming post.

Also a rant about eBay. Or maybe it’s about chinese factory outlet paintings. Or maybe it’s really about copyright infringement. At any rate . . . there will be a rant.

Ewekie, the wonder sheep.

Ewekie - Oil Pastel 7.5″ x 9.5″

Just so you know Flamin’ Sheep was not my first when it comes to painting odd colored sheep. Ewekie here, was my first purple sheep. (This image is quite a bit off color wise. She is it almost as bold as my Flamin’ Sheep painting.) And let me tell you she caused quite a stir among the locals in my dusty little rural town. People actually came into the gallery because they had heard about her and I guess they had to see for themselves the insanity of such a thing.

As we have her available in small prints (click on the image to get more details) I still occasionally get asked if there is actually a type of purple sheep that roams the earth. I smile, feeling slightly guilty and say “No, I just painted her that way.”

Apparently she made quite an impression. Because, though she had been sold years ago, someone local had mentioned her again, just the other day. I told him she had been sold and I could almost hear what he was thinking. Crazy artists, paintin’ purple sheep. Who in their right mind would want something like that. Fortunately for me, quite a few people. As a somewhat realistic animal painter, it’s nice to do something fun once in awhile and still have it find an appreciative home in which to live.

Hitting the road.
Once again we leave for an artfair this weekend. Supposedly the weather is going to be beautiful so it should be enjoyable to do. This is my last outdoor event so it would be nice to end it with pleasant weather.

See you all on Monday. (I mean it this time.) (Urm . . . probably)

Flamin’ Sheep
Oil Pastel on Handmade Paper
10 1/2″ x 13″

I finally got around to posting this. As you may have noticed, I got over my fear of calling it Flamin’ Sheep. I’m not sure how, but that title has appeared to have stuck.

So here it is finished. I wasn’t able to take it along last weekend, which is too bad since I actually have several sheep painting patrons at that event. So it goes. I’ll just have to email them a pic.

Here is my progress for today on my Flamin’ Sheep painting. (Located Below: it’s a little dark) If all goes according to plan I will finish them tomorrow.

I really like this little flock of sheep and photograph them often. The models for this painting are located just outside of town and I drive by nearly every morning on my way to the gallery. In fact the photo here is from just this morning. It is a small enough group that they form ever-changing, infinitely interesting groupings.

Flamin’ Sheep
This was almost the title of my post but I was concerned over the type of person who might be attracted to that kind of wordage. Anywho Primary Colors seemed safer.

I was needing a little something fun to do, so I broke out all my glaringly bright colors. My plans include 3 more sheep (which you can barely see penciled in) and some neon green and emerald green grasses.

I should be able to finish this little (11×13) oil pastel painting in one long afternoon. Unfortunately I won’t have one of those for a couple more weeks. My hope was to have it done by this weekend’s event. While I may get it completed I certainly won’t get it framed and ready to go in time. Ah well.

Okay, so now that I have framed them up, they have really grown on me. I did them different than my other handmade papers primarily because I used a frame I had in stock since we leave today for Omaha. It’s a perfect fit, just a little larger than I would use had I framed it as the others.

We’ll be back on Monday. Wish me good weather . . . better yet great sales.

Twins - 10 1/2 x 13
Oil Pastel on handmade paper
Copyright by Mona Majorowicz

Okay, so here they are in all their revolting cuteness. They have a rather nasty gray green color in my raw scan (shown here) that doesn’t exist in real life. The painting actually has lovely pastels of yellow, pink, green and blue in the shadow areas. I swear if they got anymore Easteresque, they would have to come with their own bag of candy. At least to my credit, I stopped short by not adding clover and butterflies.

All I can say for myself is apparently I needed a little of the Too Cute, or they wouldn’t have turned out this way. I bravely posted the finished painting to remind myself what can happen when doing baby animals that are too cute by nature. So please, dear readers, when next I say something like . . . I think I’ll do some baby bunnies, little duckies or romping kittens. You’ll remind me of this moment. All you’ll have to say is “remember the lamb incident.”

Hmmm. Maybe I should make Easter cards with image? Always thinking about marketing.

Personal Note: Since I have spent soooo much time talking about marketing, I thought I should mention the content of this post is NOT how you sell a painting. Never, (ever, ever) talk like this about your own work. I pondered whether I should even write this, but it amused me to do so. Plus, I rarely take myself too seriously.

Here’s my progress thus far on my lambs. Still not liking the cute thing, but what am gonna do about it? I put down brown paper so when I color the deckled edges I don’t completely mess up my drafting table.

These lambs are from our first year crop of lambs. A few years after we moved to Iowa we decided we needed to raise some livestock and we thought sheep were the critters for us.

We bought about a dozen ewe lambs of mixed heritage and let them mature fully. We like to think of our critters health in terms of the long haul, and waiting a little longer to breed them was they way to go. So when the time finally came, we went shopping for a ram. Since we had so few ewes, and since we intended to keep the ewe lambs, we picked out an older (cheaper) ram, which we would replace the following season.

He was a handsome stately gentleman, whom we named Chester. (why? Mike liked the sound of it. And of course “He just looks like a Chester.”) Chester was gentle, and there was nothing bully-like in his behavior at all. (You know, what you actually picture a ram’s personality to be.)

Well the girls loved him. He was always surrounded by two or three ewes, nuzzling his nose and ears, leaning against him and just in general following him around like a bunch of groupies. They never gave him a moments rest.

A few short weeks later we found him dead in the paddock. No coyotes or anything noticeable as to why he died. So we just surmised it was old age. Chester had done his job though. Every ewe had at least one lamb.

The following season we got a new younger ram. The girls wanted no part of him. He was course where Chester was gentle. He harassed them while Chester just let them come to him. It was then that it dawned on us that perhaps the girls had just sexed Chester to death. I mean he was older, but they really just kept after him the whole time. Nothing rough, just always gently touching him and surrounding him, grinning and winking.

Not sure if there is a moral here. Maybe, guys be kind to the ladies and you’ll get all the nookie you can handle? Hmm. Probably not appropriate comment for my g-rated blog huh? All I know is we never got another ram who the ewes like half as well as Chester. And oddly enough in the many years that followed, we never liked any other ram half as well either.

Well I am back to working on my lambs. They are coming along well enough. The photo here is (as usual) not so great. It is missing all the subtle soft color changes that I worked so hard on, and is making the colors transitions look harsh.

They are just a little too cute for my taste. I don’t really do cute. Yet somehow I am struggling to keep them from becoming even more cute. They are just about Easter card material as it is. Not sure what my problem is, other than doing baby animals lends itself to cute. (Sigh) I suppose the good news is, that by being cute they will pretty much be sure to be popular.