Tag: working from a photograph

Posted in painting, quilting

More Monkey Business

Posted on by Laura Kate

It’s been two weeks since I last posted about my 2026 Stay At Home Round Robin project. This week I am finally getting back to the monkey blocks. For a reference image I am using the photograph above, by Bill, for the center panel of this round. When we spotted this guy working his way down a long palm frond, it was hard to tell where he would end up. Reaching the end of the branch, he just leapt away to safety. What a plucky little creature! I just had to include him in my Costa Rica quilt.

I started in my usual manner. Making an applique transfer of the monkey was not difficult. I just traced the shape from the photograph in one piece, laid the tracing onto fused fabric and cut it out just as you would a paper doll.

In this photo you see the monkey cut-out overlaying the background fabric pre-painting You also see the tracing I made of the palm frond. It required multiple pieces of fused fabric to render a convincing applique version of the various leaflets.

The work happened over several days. Here’s the background fabric painted and the monkey and palm applique pieces fused but not sewn down yet.

Today I got out my Jacquard Textile paints and finished the work.

And here is how my monkey row will look with the two monkey wrench blocks at each end.

I have a plan for one more landscape panel to finish out this quilt. It will depict a sunrise as viewed from the villa we stayed at in Costa Rica last September.

Wish me luck.

Posted in drawing

Sunday Sketching: A Commission

Posted on by Laura Kate

A fellow yoga student has asked me to paint portraits of her dogs. It’s to be a Christmas gift for her husband. This week I worked out the preliminary drawings. I haven’t had the privilege of meeting my subjects, so I am working exclusively from some photographs.

Here is Daisy:

Daisy’s canine sibling, Reggie:

It was pretty fun making the sketches and I’m almost happy with the results. There will be a few tweaks when I do the final line drawings that will get transferred to the watercolor paper.

Posted in drawing

Sunday Sketches: Winter Birds

Posted on by Laura Kate

Today I am pondering a painting subject that illustrates wintertime. Pretty quickly I settled on the humble chickadee. It is an ever curious, constantly moving little bird. Today our backyard chickadees are flying back and forth from the tube feeder. Each bird selects and grabs one sunflower before darting up to a tree branch where it consumes its quarry.

Fortunately for me, Bill has shared two photographs of chickadees suitable for my planned painting. But working out a composition that uses both birds is not coming easily to me.

Chickadee 1.

Chickadee 2.

My first try at a composition is awkward and unsatisfactory to me, so it won’t even get shared. I decided to make ink sketches of these two photographs, which will get them familiar and warm me up to the task.

On an 8 by 8 inch piece of paper, the little chickadee, which measures barely 4 inches, can be drawn at its full size. First, I worked out the placement using pencil, then inked the contours lines, adding value with various types of marks. My sweet subjects, black and white IRL, were rendered with ease.

This one is very curious indeed.

This one is demonstrating his love of sunflower seeds.

My two chickadee drawings are numbers 42 and 43 in the 100day project.

Now I need to figure out a scene that will serve as a setting for the two birds.

Posted in drawing, painting

Friday Finish: Tutorial with Shari Blaukopf

Posted on by Laura Kate

Earlier this year I shared some work made following a tutorial taught by Montreal artist Shari Blaukopf. She is an urban sketcher and watercolorist who offers a wide range of online lessons through Teachable. Today I finished painting A French Village Scene, which is the final lesson in her course by the same name.

https://learn.shariblaukopf.com/courses/

The challenges were multiple: perspective drawing, sketching in ink, and completing the scene with watercolor.

Here is Shari’s reference photo. She took it while teaching in France this year.

Photograph by Shari Blaukopf

I labored over the perspective drawing for 2 or more hours. Perspective drawing doesn’t come easily to me, and I wanted my work to be believable, if not 100% accurate. When satisfied, I inked the important lines and erased the pencil marks.

I was forced to take some liberties with the scene, because my paper was not proportional to the original. Mine is wider.

I did most of the painting before our Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin. Returning home, I was keen to finish this and get it off my workspace. Other projects, both started and planned are stacking up awaiting my attention.

Here is my (almost) final painting.

It’s a truism, at least for painters, that they must take some time away from a work before deciding that it is finished. So that’s what I will do. Even looking at it now, I see a few areas that need more work.

Posted in drawing

Sunday Sketching: 100 day project

Posted on by Laura Kate

It feels like months since I worked on the 100 day project. But I have new inspiration that pushed me into making a sketch today.

Bill took this photo earlier in the year.

I have no idea how he got our grandson to pose AND to smile. There must have been a story to go along with this image. I’ll have to ask about it. Anyway, the photo touched my heart and motivated me to get out my pencil, eraser and Micron pen.

Here is my initial pencil sketch.

I worked on it sporadically over a few days, trying to get all the proportions and subtleties of the face accurate.

Today I inked my lines, refining shapes as I worked.

I used number .05 and .005 Micron pens, adding light hatch lines to indicate contours and shadow. The boy has a multitude of freckles, which I felt unable to render with any degree of delicacy. So, you get to see Henry freckle-free.

I believe this drawing brings me to Day 41 of the 100-day challenge. While I feel no particular urgency to reach 100 pieces of art before a year has passed, I’ll continue to plug away at the project. Bill continues to offer up excellent photographs for my artistic consideration.