by akikowhite

Hop on over to the show!

I have placed a link to an article that was posted to the Blanco newspaper. 
Come join us for some social time and enjoy my animal paintings! http://www.blanconews.com/news/100790/
Closing reception will be Friday, July 22. From 5-7:00 p.m.
This is a painting of our little Rex bunny. I have such a funny story to tell about little Rex and his friend Floppy. One afternoon a year after acquiring little Rex, we sat on the porch relaxing and looking out at the 2 bunnies in the bunny cage. We had decided that the two bunnies must be just females or just two males. We figured that we probably would have had baby bunnies by that time if they weren’t. We’ll they proved us wrong for the very next day little Floppy had 6 little nude babies. What a surprise! They were so tiny and pink.

Enjoyable Gallery Show!

I had a very enjoyable show in Blanco, Texas during the Lavender festival. I even finished a painting during the show. Many people stopped by to see the progression of my dog painting that I did.

This show is up through July.

This is a painting of my dog Lumpy. We named him that because he was such a lump at birth. He was the biggest of the litter and just seemed content to just sit around. He is a 6 years old Pyrenees. This breed of dog is so loving and laid back. We have 4 dogs now. Two of them, Ozzy and Lumpy, protect our yard and the other two, Lily and Angel, that protect our livestock.

It is amazes me how the livestock dogs work together. One of them may go out with the sheep while the other will go out with the goats. If Angel comes up to the house with the goats earlier than Lily then she will bark to call Lily to bring the sheep. What an amazing duo! I hope to paint them sometime soon.

Please join me at my show this Saturday June 11, at the Blanco Art Center. The Lavender Festival of Blanco Texas will be going on during this time. Lots of vendors and delicious lavender enhanced food will be on the square.  http://www.blancolavenderfest.com/ 
When you need to cool off head down to the Blanco Art Center to enjoy my paintings. I am planning to paint on the porch in the morning. Come and watch my technique. I will be sharing the show with an artist Janet Brooks. She will have a few of her art pieces hanging in the gallery. 
Here are a few more of my paintings that I have been working on for the show. All of them are for sale. Commissions are welcome. If you have a pet that you would like reproduced in my style please contact me for pricing.
Enjoy!
Little Calf
This little guy is one or our neighbors calves. He is now grown up and living in luxury with many beautiful warmblood horses at Red Pony Farm. I enjoyed painting this little guy on a two inch gesso board.
Little Colt
I was on my way home one day when I noticed a little colt at my neighbor’s house. I was anxious to meet the little guy so I stopped by and knocked on my neighbor’s door. When I asked if I could go and visit her new little colt she was surprised, and said “I don’t have any babies yet.” I told her that I was pretty sure that I saw a small horse in her pasture. We both bolted to the pasture and sure enough this little stallion was up and nursing off of his mom. Apparently he came a few weeks earlier than anticipated. What an amazing site to welcome a new baby into the world.

Painting of Harry (281)

This fuzzy guy is 281. He was found on Hwy 281, hence his name. He was bottle raised by a friend, moved in next door, and came to us 3 years ago. I have recently found 281 a new home and they renamed him HARRY or is it HAIRY? They are planning on spinning his coat and making fun things with it. He is a very sweet Angora/Cashmere Goat. Such a character, we do miss him!

My new Paintings!

I am diligently painting for a show that will take place during the Lavender fest in Blanco, Texas.

Come and join me at the Uptown Blanco Art Center on June 10-12. My daughter will also be showing her ceramic animal whistles and rattles. Everything will be for sale.
http://uptownblanco.com/art_center.html

Here is a little preview of the things I have been painting:

This is Alamo. He was one of our neighbor’s longhorn bull. He is now living with a nice herd of cows somewhere in the hill country.

This is a painting of our little black bantam chicken. She is sitting on eggs in this image. She now has a small chick that she clucks away at. I think she is a little mad that I disturbed her. That’s why she is so fluffed up. Cluck…Cluck…
This Bull, Paul Blart (from Mall Cop) is another one of our neighbor’s pets. He is always getting into trouble! One day I heard the cops siren going off in the front of our property, when I walked outside to find out what the commotion was about it was Paul Blart out cruz’n the neighborhood with a police car following him. Needless to say he did not get a ticket but he did have to go back to house arrest at his home pasture. 
Paul Blart is not the first to escape our neighbor’s beautiful hill country pastures. Initially a billy goat had figured out how to open the gate by wiggling the wires on the box to the gate opener. He taught Paul how to do this and he has been escaping ever since.
Yippee-i-a Cow Patty! 

Painting With A Palette Knife

Here is a photo of our cat Callie. She is the subject for my next painting. I will show you the process that I go through to get a completed palette knife painting. This painting is a 20 x 20 inch square. It took me about 4 hours to complete. I have to work quickly in order to get anything done. I like to be able and finish what I have started in one afternoon. I have a difficult time coming back to something. There is always something unexpected that comes up and I wouldn’t know when I would be able to return to my painting, let alone have the inspiration to finish it.

I will start out with a very clear color photo of my subject. This gives me lots of option for details that I can add into my painting. I may or may not use what is in the background. In this case, I left out the ugly water tank in the back. I also added a tuft of grass in the lower left corner. Sometimes I might combine my images to make one painting.

Here I have drawn from free hand using the photo of the cat as my guide. I use a 2B pencil.
As an illustrator I have learned that there are other ways that one might get this initial image on the canvas. You can put the photo into photoshop or another design program and blow it up proportionately to your canvas size. Then you can tile the work and print it to size. When you have taped a full size image you can add graphite to the back of the printed tiled work and retrace on top of where you initially had an image. This will transfer the image with exact proportions to the original photo.
I always work on my easel. I also try to work in the early morning or early afternoon in a well lit room. Today it was a bit cloudy, it was perfect for picture taking.
Here I am putting down some colors that I will use in the background. I first use a fairly large brush watered down with the turpenoid to apply a base color to the background. I am not picky with the type of brush that I use. I usually try to find the one that is not all splayed out from one of the kids using it. It is a rarity if I find a good brush anywhere in my house. This is why I chose to paint with a palette knife. Not to mention that it is easier to tote around one palette knife then a large group of brushes.
I used mainly Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna for the browns and Sap Green with a mixing white for the trees. Prussian Blue with the mixing white is used for the sky. These are the base colors that I begin to lay down on my canvas.
The paint is laid down around the main subject. It is not necessary to be so careful at this stage. The paint should be somewhat translucent.

Now that I have put on the base coat for the ground I will work on the trees and the sky. I make sure that I add color to the sides of the painting also. The brush strokes can go any direction. They will be covered once I start to add the paint with a palette knife. The base coat just helps to cover areas that I may miss while I am painting with the knife.

Next I add the sky and the trees in the background. Again I am not worried at this point which way the brush strokes go.

Here I have started to shade in some darker areas on the cat. I also added the fence that she is sitting on.
Now I begin to add the paint with my palette knife. I wanted to show you the close up of the texture that the palette knife makes. I love the way it looks! I add and mix my colors directly on the canvas as if it where a palette. I use a paper towel to clean my knife when it gets too saturated with the wrong color of paint.
I try to put most of my background color onto the canvas. I then start to add some of the lighter tones and the mid-tones onto the cat. This is Yellow Ochre with a touch of the Burnt Sienna in it.
She looks a bit funny here but it will all come together in the end. When painting I try to pay attention to the light source. This is what makes a painting look realistic. I also do not use black. I mix the cooler colors (blues and purples) for the dark areas and I use warmer tones (reds and yellows) for the highlights. I also make sure that I pay attention to the light blue reflections in the shadows.

 Now she has a face. There is still a lot of detailing to add. I am careful with where I add color at this point because the paint is very thick. Especially if I want to add a lighter tone. This is why I don’t put color on the canvas where there may be white. If I put too much of a color I don’t want I will just scrape it off with the palette knife and start over on that section.

Here I start to add more details of the cat’s stripes. I also add more to the background and the grasses on the ground. I also add more details to her eyes.
Almost done! I just need to add the whiskers and my signature. It is alway so much fun to see the final image. I always surprise my self with the final result. It’s hard to imagine what the painting is going to look like when there is just a blank white canvas staring you in the face.
Finished! Yeah! What a fun painting. She looks like a really fat cat! Callie really isn’t as fat as she looks in this painting. It is just the angle that I took the photograph. I like these close ups of animals. I feel like it really shows their personalities. Callie looks a bit like the Cheshire Cat in this painting.

Finally have time to Blog!

I have been busy with teaching and have not had the time to blog, but I want to start being more proactive about it and get some information out there! I am proud of all my students. They have done exceptionally well this semester. I have also enjoyed teaching them.

So…now that I have more time to blog and paint I will be posting more things. I have a show in June during the Blanco Lavender Fest in Blanco, Texas. This show will be at the Blanco Art Center Downtown. http://uptownblanco.com/art_center.html My daughter and I will also be teaching classes there this summer if anyone is interested.

I spent most of the day yesterday just organizing and deciding what images would look good on what canvases. I am looking forward to turning the white canvases into colorful renditions of my farm friends and nature.

Because I have just started the process. I will post and a few past paintings of my farm friends. In my next post I will go through the process of how I get an image from a photograph onto the canvas.

 This is a painting of my little white Dorper sheep Rudolf. We got him around Christmas time. He was an orphaned lamb. I tend to be the go to mama for orphaned animals. He has since grown and is now living happily with his herd of ewes at Fat Bottom Farm in Gause, Texas. http://www.fatbottomfarm.com/ They make goat milk products and  raise several different farm friends. They were also on Discovery channel’s television show Dirty Jobs by Mike Rowe. http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/dirty-jobs/

Here is the link to Fat Bottom Farm’s fun story on their 15 minutes of fame! http://www.fatbottomfarm.com/Dirty-jobs.html 

This is Afro our top rooster at the moment. He is a Polish rooster who has a great do. I added a little more color to his feathers, but I think it show’s his personality. He lost his mate to a raccoon last year. Recently this year our main rooster Big Red has gone to a happy place and Afro has gratefully taken his place amongst the hens. It’s a big responsibility but he is enjoying his new reign. Afro is a great subject to paint and draw. I will definitely be doing more paintings of him soon.

This is Rosie. She was one of our better milkers. I really enjoy my Nubian goats. They have such wonderful personalities. Rosie was one of the first goats that we acquired. I did not want goats! My impression was that goats are pushy animals, annoying and a big responsibility! Well they are all that and more, but they are well worth the headache. They are so sweet and fun that they negate all the bad qualities that I initially thought they had. Just ask anyone with a milk goat. They will say they have a love hate relationship with them, with more on the love than hate.
There will be more paintings of these types of goats in the future. I just love their long dangly ears!

Spring Break

We went to the coast over spring break.
This is a painting that I recently did for our friends 
as a thank you gift for letting us stay at their condo.
Port Aranasas, Texas is a nice get away for my family.
It is only 3 hours away from our hill country home.

This painting is hanging in my friends condo.
If you would like to view other paintings like this one 
please check out my website www.akikowhite.com
You may also purchases my coastal paintings from the 
Felder Gallery in Port Aransas, Texas. Their website is:
http://feldergallery.com/
Here you will see some amazing artist. Larry Felder is the 
owner and also sells his beautiful paintings here. He just recently 
moved to Costa Rica. Larry has been blogging about his 
painting techniques. If you are an artist or just interested in art his
blog would be worth following…http://larryfelderart.blogspot.com/
Happy Spring Everyone!

I just enjoyed and evening with friends. It was a Mardi Gras themed party. 
This is a painting that I did for Mardi Gras on Main in Kerrville. It was used 
as decoration last night. It is a 16 x 20 framed painting. Still available for purchase. 
Happy Mardi Gras Ya’ll!

Artisanal Life

I love organic foods. My family makes many things from scratch. It may not be the easiest way but it is the most delicious way. I love the way a fresh cut vegetable taste from my own garden. Also the gratification of making cheese from the milk of an animal that I have raised. I like to see the excitement in my children’s eyes when I turn on the mixer to make a special homemade treat.

I want to capture all of this in my paintings and illustrations. I want to share all of this with you. This is the way life should be. Live it! Savor it!