Inspiration-October

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. It is a month full of stories that inspire and stories that make your heart break.

A fellow artist and friend, Constanza Ehrenhaus, has been an inspiration this month. She created this beautiful and powerful piece as her contribution to the awareness of Breast Cancer and donated it to the Susan Komen foundation against Breast Cancer.

copyright 2009 Constanza Ehrenhaus

When I saw this piece it brought tears to my eyes. There is such depth of meaning in this delicate illustration. Cancer is harsh, but it cannot take the core of your beauty.

Constanza is selling prints here and all the profits will be donated to foundations that fight breast cancer.

Portrait in Color

I’m finished! I may come back to it at some point, but I feel pretty good about my self portrait. It was a lot of fun to do. I think I might try my hand at a few more portraits after I work out some of the projects I have right now.

Without further ado, here is the finished piece.

copyright 2009 Christina Kester

Another Update on WIP

I’m just about to the coloring stage on my portrait.

WIP Portrait Update

Here is the progress so far on my self portrait

The start of a self portrait

I’ve been wanting to do a self portrait for some time now. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to go about doing it. I started playing around in photoshop and here is what I came up with. It is only a beginning. The plan is to add color after I have all of the values down. I’m also thinking about adding a sort of green woman mask. The beauty about digital is that I can change my mind very easily.

In other news, I am going to add more things to my zazzle store in the next week or two. Right now it is pretty bare.

I am also working on a celtic hummingbird piece as well as my alphabet. The block for letter A has been gessoed and is ready for painting.

New Painting

I just finished a painting from a sketch I did on a whim. It is not my most original, but I really like it. And it got accepted to Epilogue, which is juried.

The painting is 4×6 inches on coldpress watercolor paper. The medium is acrylic.

Inspiration 9-9-09

Trees. They are so varied and interesting.

Take these photos of bark. The first is from a pine tree in Rocky Mountain National Park, the second is from a poplar in a friend’s back yard.

I love the color and shapes of the pine tree bark. The poplar has some great texture.

I’ve discovered that when I am in a slump creativity-wise, perhaps a block, drawing trees gets me back in the groove.

So go draw, and maybe hug, a tree

Inspiration 9-2-09

Taliesin’s giggle makes me want to make the world a better place. It inspires me to create something beautiful so that his laughter will have company in it’s beauty.

Celtic Alphabet

My sketches for the alphabet are complete. Now it is on to painting. I plan on acrylic on wood boards. I would imagine that it will take me quite a while. I’d love to get them all done by my son’s first birthday, but realistically I think it will take a bit longer. Especially if I manage to find a day job.

I gathered all the sketches together, cleaned them up in Photoshop, and compiled them in a single image. Without further ado, here is the alphabet.

Moving Along

Two more letters are finished. I’m really pleased with how O looks. I really love oak, so that might have something to do with it.

I’m really getting excited to finish this phase of the project and start painting. I will have to take a break between the sketch phase and the painting phase because my son has to have surgery. No worries though, he will be fine. I just want to be able to focus my attention on him for a couple of weeks.