Illustration Friday - "Similar" #2

©KathleenRietz

Day 12 of 21 - another challenging pose

©Kathleen Rietz
I tried another pose that seems sort of challenging to me. Sometimes we lose the fullness of form when we try to draw a person lying flat on the ground.....and I think the foreshortening of crossing one leg over the other can also be challenging. But this is such a relaxed pose. Can you tell how much I am longing for summer??

Day 11 of 21

©Katleen Rietz
Tonite I challenged myself to draw a child in a scrunched position, and to give that child glasses. I sometimes think proportions can be tough in a pose like this, and glasses can look comical if one is not careful. Overall, I am pleased with the sketch, although I admit I fussed with some shading and the spade and watering can for a while and it took me longer than 15 minutes. I sort of liked it before I added all of the rendering. It had a really nice spontaneity to it.

Day 8 of 21-" Warm Fuzzies"

©Kathleen Rietz
Ooops - I missed a few days. Oh, the life of a freelance artist can take its toll. The first quarter of this year was so dreadfullly slow. I spent much of it pushing myself to draw every day, experiment, stretch my vision as an artist....and it seems to be paying off right now. Much of what is happening in my professional life I need to keep quiet about for the moment. But this lifestyle - especially in this current economy - is feast or famine. So I missed a few days because I took some time for myself to recover from overlapping deadlines last week. I made it into the gym, saw friends, walked the dog and planted a tree. These simple joys inspired today's post, which is an ode to Winnie the Pooh.

Welcome Spring! #2

"Spring Dance" ©Kathleen Rietz
"The Cat's Meow" ©Kathleen Rietz

Welcome Spring!

"Butterfly Dance" ©Kathleen Rietz
I am actually working on a series (in my mind), and this is the first painting. Busy busy busy week, so I am not sure if it will only be a series of one! ; ) Is there such a thing?
I did not feel like writing tonite, but I stole some sleep time to paint a little.

Late Eggs

©Kathleen Rietz (worth clicking for a larger view)
Between getting over the flu, de-skunking my house, and just trying to catch up on ever-changing work deadlines, I was late transferring my Easter Egg photos from my camera. It was hard to choose which photo to post, actually, because I love how they turned out. I tried so many fun techniques this year (building layer upon layer of color, rubbing, buffing, scraping, oil resists, etc...) and was really surprised with the outcome.....many of them were "happy mistakes"! So if you want to dye eggs with me next year, be prepared for something fun and original. I feel like each little egg is a labored masterpiece.

Illustration Friday - "Pet Peeves" & an Easter I will never forget!

© Kathleen Rietz
One of my biggest pet peeves is gossip. We all know what it feels like to be the target. Makes you not want to go to school.
© Kathleen Rietz (the elusive Easter Skunk)
Just after 10pm on Saturday night, my dog Sunshine had a run-in with - among all things - the Easter Skunk. I let her out into the yard to do her business, but she never even made her way off the patio before she was sprayed in the face by a skunk. For those of you who do not have skunks in your part of the world in which you live and have never smelled the aroma emitted by these creatures of darkness, I cannot even begin to describe the smell to you because nothing compares to it. But it is oily, deep, intense and nauseating. My friend Joan who lives in Hawaii found my story rather amusing because she "thought these things only happened in cartoons"....like Pe Pe Le Pew. Needless to say, I nearly cleared out the drug store as I waited in line to pay for my remedy.....NO ONE would stand next to me. I also did not make it to church today to celebrate Easter. Nor brunch at the country club where my sister works. No one wants to eat an omelet in a room that smells of skunk funk.

Anyhoo - if any of you are interested, here is how you get rid of skunk funk:

On your pet, shampoo the pet with a mixture of:
1 pint hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tsp Dawn liquid dish soap
Leave on pet for 10 minutes, rinse.

In your house:
In a large pot, boil water, Clorox bleach and salt on your stove on high heat for several hours. I was so pleasantly surprised to find how well this one works! We boiled the pot all day and the smell is actually gone!

I hope you all had a much more relaxing and enjoyable Easter weekend than I did. I am looking forward to hitting a post-Easter candy sale to soothe my psyche with a chocolate marshmallow bunny if I can still find one!

Hoppy Easter!

©Kathleen Rietz (today's image is for Leon)
Any of you who know me well know that Easter has a much deeper meaning to me than bunnies and coloring eggs. But I do enjoy the images of spring this time of year. Here in Chicago there is a winter storm warning today. I could use a little springtime festivities right now! Happy Easter everyone!
By the way, if you have some time this weekend, check out an interview with me An Interview with Kate! and see what else us Picture Bookies have been up to!