Little Lina’s Lovelies Home

I’m so sorry for my almost month long hiatus my friends! I was caught up in the rush of preparations for my best friend’s wedding, which is now a lovely memory.

Before the couple arrived, pre-wedding, I started renovating my kitchen. These things always take longer than expected, don’t they? I’d love to say it all got done before they came into town, but alas, I’d be lying to you, and I don’t want to do that! So in the middle of visiting, cleaning, gathering last minute items, and working I let my little blog slide, I am sorry.

A few days before the actual wedding we headed over to Maggie Valley where the bride and groom had rented an unbelievable cabin at the top of a mountain where incoming family would stay. There we had people coming and going and gazing in awe at the amazing view.

You know you are high up when you’re at eye level with other mountaintops! And just look at the fall colors, truly beautiful.

The rest of my pictures here are from the reception. I was maid of honor, so I couldn’t take photos nor did I have time to chase down my love to get him my camera to take pictures. He was incredible, helping everyone get seated when they had to be, getting the leaf-blower guy to actually stop blowing leaves, and getting everyone packed into vehicles to head up the mountain from the gazebo to the cabin for the candle ceremony and reception.

So here are some of my favorite pictures I did manage to snap. Enjoy!

The Bride and her mom, so cute!!!

The Groom about to chow down on some delicious bbq and amazing hush puppies from Butts on the Creek.

Amazing cupcake toppers, hand painted by yours truly. And the amazing cupcakes by Natalie from Annie’s in Sylva. I swear as you can see this girl rocked the cupcakes, you could just tell she enjoyed making them by how lovely they turned out.

I’ll be posting actual wedding picts very soon, so check back!!!

This sketch reference is from deviant-caroline

Amongst logo’s, illustrations, house-sitting, rummaging, eating and sleeping I managed another sketch, I think this one came out great.

Comment time!
This was a strange one, the first quick outline of this was horrid, the second not much better. “What is going on?” I thought to myself. I took many deeper looks at this portrait and how her features lined up just trying to understand where I was going wrong. On all faces, the corner of the mouth lines up with the iris, and the edge of the nose lines up with the interior corner of the eye. For some reason I could not line up her features. Everything was off. Sounds kind of frustrating huh? It was. I did the only thing I could do, I pushed through and kept trying, and I’m honestly so happy with the result. I would paint this but I don’t think I could because it’s her stock and she probably wouldn’t appreciate me making money off of her photo. O well, life goes on. The only other thing I may not have done was to shade in that crease on her chin, it visually disturbs me because it meets with her shoulder. But here it is, take a look at it if you like. I absolutely love the eyes in this one, they came out looking like there are true reflections if you look deeply enough.

These are my rummage finds for early September. With cooler weather setting in my home restoration plans were kicked into overdrive. I set my mind on a few basic things. I wanted to find simple storage solutions, display solutions for my next Dawn Dolls show, a new painting desk for outside, a small drop leaf table for the kitchen, and some white accents.

I accomplished most of this, quite successfully. My friend at stoneschoolvintage.etsy.com called one day to tell me she found me the perfect red school desk. This woman has an uncanny knack for finding THE BEST things! So I went and got the desk, $10, nice.

Then we went to this new thrifty place, I could not lose! The rest of the items shown above (not the cat…) I got from this place and the most expensive item was the white wall shelf for $2.00! I do not think I spent over $4 for the rest of the items in the picture.

The white wall shelf will go either in the kitchen with a new coat of paint, some fabric on the back, and maybe some hooks to hold my everyday drinking glasses and coffee mugs. Or I may put it into the bathroom to hold simply some books and new rolls of toilet paper. BUT the cool thing is that it will double as my new doll display! Yay, what a find for two bucks!

The wire bin has yet to find a use, it can be hung on the wall or used to hold my pots, hmmm not sure yet, that’s half the fun. The little black chalkboard might fit in my kitchen after I replace the image on it with something I’ve done, or I may resell it with a new portrait I create or something.

The two little jugs are perfectly cute on my kitchen window sill with some wildflowers. The little frame will display a picture of Dawn at the show. The little black hanging basket will look super cute in my kitchen holding chucks of garlic. The peanut sack slung over the back of the school desk I hope to frame and hang behind the school desk on the wall there. And the two window frames are actually from stoneschoolvintage.etsy.com, I plan to put cork board in them and hang them somewhere in my house to tack up those fly-away papers we all have.

Um, my Maine Coon friend in the picture just loves to approve my little finds. Here he is giving his thorough sniff test. After this approval process was done, he took quite a long cat nap on the desktop there. He approves!

Today’s sketch reference is by senshistock

Good news, I found my favorite drawing pencil! I will have to clean the clump of hair it accumulated after the kittens deposited it in the dark recess of my office, but now I can sketch and admire the teenie tiny teeth marks left by my little furry friends.

Comment time!
I’m fighting with my mechanical pencil, it made this sketch so blurry! So I am glad to have my favorite pencil back! Anyway, yes, fuzzy lines, ew. I think that’s my major issue with this sketch. I think it came out just fine for a reference of a girl wearing elegant heels, some sort of leotard, a strange headband and wielding a sword. Honestly I think the approach Erika took was much more appropriate, her sketch captured the feeling the stock photography girl intended I think.

Today’s sketch is from sitara-leotastock, and if you slide on over to Raven Girl’s Nest you’ll see a couple more renditions of this stock image after today.

I think soon Raven Girl will be posting on twitter our choice for the day so others who might be interested can join in on the fun. So check back for more on that.

Ok comment time!
Overall I didn’t pay much mind to the ambient light here, I should have, I think it would have made this better. And I am not a fan of feet (they totally gross me out) so I kinda shaped the foot, big toe (starting to feel faint) and the ankle. The actual picture was super blurry on the hands, and while I got the outline of the fingers pretty well, when I shaded it with my unsharpenable mechanical pencil it became more of a blob hand, so if I hadn’t shaded it at all I would have been much happier. I do enjoy the pretty folds of the fabric and the overall composition. I measured from the top of the head then used that as a reference to measure her length. I had to do something because I couldn’t see the picture well enough small to find some features, and when I had the large picture up on my screen I couldn’t see but 1/2 the picture at a time. And oh, I almost forgot, I had to focus on making this sketch realistic, I really had the urge to do a more exaggerated bend at the waist and give her much more muscle tone, that was interesting.

That’s about it. Feel free to post me a love note and tell me what you think.
Thanks!

After sketching this last week, I was completely in the mood to paint. So much so that I didn’t want to conceptualize anything, just to smooth that lovely, slimy stuff onto some nice white gesso paneling. I instantly knew what I wanted to do, take that pretty, pretty photo of “Banshee” by Marina Bychkova and recreate it to hang on my wall. And my wall alone!!! MINE! …

my precious…

Anyway, so here it is, and I’ll be submitting it to fan art gallery hoping she’ll fall in love with it like I fell in love with her unbelievable porcelain dolls. Look through her amazing gallery if you want to just be absolutely floored and, dare I say, Enchanted.

This sunny Saturday I sat down to surf.

This sound like Susie sells seashell at the seashore doesn’t it…or is it just me?

Anyway, after checking out Fridays’ project Must Sketch over at Raven Girl’s Nest I surfed on over to Dean’s etsy shop, Gongamutt Studios on Etsy.

Can you just say WOW?! My eyes have just been blown away by these AMAZING SUPER saturated color posters! All digitally done to remind you of those 3D Pulp Fiction posters.

Did she say 3D posters? Yes I did! Somehow this creative genius made his artwork 3D, how I don’t want to know, I just think it’s so very cool he did. You just order the fun 3D glasses and BAM!!! Aliens are in your living room!

Now if I can just get him to make a Zombie poster with 1 Latin chick and 1 Japanese chick that would make my day. /wink Or female ninjas…do they have ninja’s in sci-fi? hehe.

Today’s stock resources at deviantart were kinda, well, different. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why people post their prom pictures, dirty feet stomping on teddy bears, and some other really funky crap as stock art. Yet some more professional stock image resources are more worthwhile, like today’s pick : Octoberjoy

So if you feel like it, check out the image I referenced, and look at what I did. And comment if ya feel like it.

My good friend Ravengirl and I discuss art frequently, mostly, what we want to accomplish with our art. She aspires to be an award winning illustrator. When I was 4 years old my ambition in life was to be a mailbox because I wanted letters from friends (that was before I knew about bills or we had such things as tweets). Now I’m an aspiring artist, I don’t care what I illustrate as long as it’s from my heart.

Our main discussions are focused around making money from our art. And, short version, first you have to practice, then produce, then profit (hey that was cool!) the 3 P’s, very important.

So she started sketching, trying to do it daily, and now she’s recruited me. Her idea was simple, choose from the stock resources at deviantart.com and do quick sketches. So, today we chose this. And here is my sketch.

She’s inviting comments on her work, and so am I. What do you think? Any feedback would be great, like they technique? No? Hate the skirt area? Love the eyes? Let me know!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m so happy to announce that Little Linas Lovelies.com now has artwork in an Art Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina. Man’s Ruin was awesome enough to display “Legendary” and the new “Her Wings” on their walls. Prints of all the artwork sold here are also available at their Gallery.

Man’s Ruin, Tattoo, Piercings and Art Gallery in Asheville, is owned by Heather Ruin. She has been tattooing for about 10 years and has held the title of “Best of Asheville” for 7 years and running! The shop is a very cool place, which is run by a female crew, who decided to display the art of locals to support the community, a great idea! Jenn Sumo manages the Art Gallery and all 36 artists who have their work there, special props to her for accepting my work!

This display will run from Sept. 1st, 2009 through Jan. 31st, 2010, so if you are in the area, stop in, get your nose pierced and perhaps a tattoo, and see Little Lina’s Lovelies all framed and kick-ass looking on the wall!