JFlah's Blunders

Finished late last night. My sister came to help some. Were it not for that, I'd not have completed it. I got in there to start around 2pm and painted till about 8:30pm. I'm thinking it was worth the effort. Turned out cute.

I'm about to paint a set piece for the upcoming children's choir musical (A Tree Lot Christmas) and have done lots of sketches. Plan to put some paint to the piece within the next few days - probably Saturday since I can't seem to get out of the office during the week to work on it and figure it will take 8-10 hours. Keep an eye out for pictures of the process if you're interested. Here are the preliminary idea sketches with the one I'm probably going to follow first. Can't put a Christmas tree in the design because that's a part of the story - Carmichael doesn't have a tree and doesn't particularly want one but has allowed the kids to set up their tree lot beside his store with hopes that it will attract more business. Simplified everything as much as I thought I could. When I get to painting, I may remove the top window in favor of brick since a lot of that section will be covered by the striped canopy and the decorations they plan to string ...

Ok, so this is a pencil sketch and not in ink, but the point is to draw, right? At least this one isn't on a napkin.

Can't believe that Walmart.com is still selling the infant bedding set I designed while at Crown Craft/NoJo . I was there for only a few months and they granted the the great honor to of allowing me to take this project and run with it. They even let me name it - Dreamland Teddy. It's done well enough that they have since made a pink version and I couldn't be happier about that. I've seen some of the reviews online and have to say that they're encouraging. When I'm feeling like what I design or draw isn't good enough or that what I'm doing looks juvenile or when I have any kind of negative thought about what I'm doing, I consider what a great success Dreamland Teddy continues to be even 5 years after I designed it and how uncertain I was about it even then. It's surprising how emotions so often prove to be unfounded in truth. Here're my mechanicals:

Dad brought me a cypress knee to paint. He carved it and told me to go to town. Was a challenge to decide what to do with it since all that was carved was the head and the gifts/teddy bear. I think it turned out ok for my first one.