My painting a Day commitment - one watercolor still life in 9 days, not very prolific!

My commitment was one a day and it's January 9 and this watercolor still life of lemons with a vintage tablecloth on a maple table with reflections is the only thing I've completed.

I had a feeling that weekends would be hard but thought I'd get it done during the week.  But on the way to Center City at a Mummers Day Party, I started sneezing and 8 days later am still subpar.

So that's my excuse. 

In addition, snow and taking down the Christmas decorations and my two vintage shops all ate my time.

I also have a great dog whose portrait I'm doing, but I'm not counting this as part of the daily challenge.

But I am encouraged!  This is my second try at watercolor and I see a lot of things I'd do differently, but there's plenty of still life objects in my house that I love...all vintage from the 1930s to 1960s.  I really want to be looser and quicker and fresh with my watercolor paintings and I feel like I've gotten a good start with it.

Portrait of a Little Girl with a lot of Flair!

Here's the portrait of a little girl I have been working on off and on for a while.  I did her sisters portrait months ago, but before my Christmas rush.

For you artists, here's my skin color palette info...prismacolors and colorsofts in pinks, peaches, yellows, whites, tans, lavenders, reds and blues.  No "clay rose" or any other greyed color.  I found that they just deadened skin unbelievably.  The blues and lavendars did the job with the shadow sides without making it look pasty and unnatural.

I also didn't copy the photo, it was shot indoors in the shade, so the skin color was way duskier than it really is.  I am lucky that I had an array of photos to consult and could bring out the sunny and youthful skin color.

I am hoping to get my children's portraits out there to the real live public, not just online.  I have two more samples I want to do to be able to take with me to shows...a tiny tot ballerina and a teenaged hockey player.  Of course, I accept commissions online, too, I just want to expand my audience.  Come visit my site full of samples of my pet and childrens portraits!  You can also order via my email, and here's where you can see my animal paintings

Juggling, childrens portrait, dog portrait painting, woodblock print & marketing

Still on the easel is this painting of a little mutt (I love mutts!) on a retro orange vinyl ottoman.  My dilemma is needing a name for this piece, so I am asking my Facebook fans to help.  It's one of the little things I never thought about when I decided that, in addition to my pet and childrens portraits, I'd paint, draw and print pieces to sell at shows and at my Etsy Store.  Speaking of which, I am trying to keep my head down, so to speak.  I've never worked without deadlines before, never.  And then there's the marketing, updating the online sites, looking for shows and galleries that would be a fit.

It's a juggling act that all artists do.  I'm convinced the better you are as a juggler, the better chances for success you have.  Until of course, you're so successful, you can hire people to do it for you.

Back to the dog, I really enjoyed painting the retro, mid century modern ottoman.  I can always put a dog on a carpet or grass, but I really like dark backgrounds with just a hint of something in the back (can you see the curtains?) and well lit foreground.  I see some tweaking, so hopefully will have this guy off and dry and varnished at the same time I have a name!

I've been approached recently for shows and gallery shows.  It's hard to figure out what would work for me, so a lot of thinking and investigating to do.  The important thing for both of those, of course, is to be ready.  So I've been keeping my head down and working.

At the same time, you know I love commission work.  I love collaborating with my clients to create the portrait of their dreams.  It's such a thrill to be chosen and I will never take that for granted.  I'm glad people like my style and how I approach my work.  I'm in the middle of one of a darling little girl, I'll be showing you her in a day or so.

AND, I have a woodblock print of a pug I've been DYING to get to.  Wood is cut, drawing done, new set of my favorite knives bought (I like disposable ones), just need to do it! 

Do I sound like I'm complaining?  The only complaint is the number of hours in a day.  I want to do it all even more!  It's so important to make the most of each minute.  But that's true for all of us, isn't it? Whether you're an artist or not?

Hey, about that name...suggestions welcome, here or HERE.  My Portraits site is http://robinzebley.com/.  Thanks for visiting my blog, I really do appreciate your visit, and I LOVE comments! Robin

Black Lab Portrait with Hunting Scene Landscape Background

This is one of the pet portraits I finished recently.  This guy's name is "DumbDog".  Now, that's not his real name, it's a nickname, and it's not descriptive of this really smart, wonderful fellow.  It's like calling a giant dog "Tiny" or a heavy one "Slim".  One of those silly, affectionate nicks that just stuck.

Of course, Labs love the water, and so I posed him in an environment he loves:  Ready, willing and able to dive right into that marshy wetlands water behind him.

We live near the Heinz Wildlife Preserve that borders Philadelphia on one side and my small borough on the other and often walk with Otto there. Besides the birds of every description, if you're observant, you get to see turtles and frogs, small mammals and lots of deer.  We get a lot of spillover from the birds who live there and stop there on their migrations at our bird feeders less than a mile away.  (We also are gifted by the mosquito visits!).

At one time, of course, much of the surrounding area was wetland...this is one of the only protected urban wetlands left. 

But back to DumbDog.  The specs are that this is a colored pencil portrait, 16" x 20" with prismacolor and color soft colored pencil on Mi Tientes pastel paper.

Another thing this portrait did for me was make me really want to paint outdoors, maybe plein air for all of it or maybe part of it with studio time to finish up.  But that's not going to be colored pencil, which takes too long.  So, I'm currently enrolled in an oil painting class to fill in the gaps of my self-taught painting technique.  There's just a lot of science involved with the mediums used with oils that I need to understand, plus I just love hanging out with other artists and art lovers.  And of course, I'll be showing you my work here and on my Facebook Art Page, HERE which is my short and sweet show and tell!  See you there!!