Leanne Wildermuth : Artist by Nature

I’m 36!

January

2007

Welcome to my Birthday! Today is the day. Help yourself to a nice piece of cake! Yes, that is my cake. Except that I put the words on there. The rest is totally edible. And the frosting? Buttercream, of course!

I woke up at 6:00, and nothing happened. So far, turning 36 hasn’t proven any different from yesterday. Here are some non-eventful events that have (or have not) unexpectedly occurred today.

None of my Birthday Wishes have come true (yet). Bummer.
I do not have the urge to hide my age or pretend I’m any younger. (I thought I would. Can any of you old people tell me at what age this occurs?)
I didn’t spontaneously lose the rest of my hair color and turn gray. (it could happen.) (yes, I was worried about that, too.)
I had an uncontrollable, unexplainable urge to wear red today. And so I did.
I got a new zit. It’s all shiny, and red. Hey, do you think that’s why I had that urge?
My husband put gas in the car. What a man.
He also woke me up with kisses and happy birthdays. Again. What a man.
He ALSO wrote an e-mail to John Mayer’s management team to request John make an appearance on my blog today or something. Well. Like that’ll happen. (I’m still gonna cross my fingers in hopes that he’ll think I’m cuter and more lovable than Jessica Simpson, and that he won’t be able to resist the urge to check his new amps with a nice jazzy rendition of happy birthday and upload it to YouTube just for me.)
One of my girlfriends sent me a GC to Amazon for a backyard birding book I’ve been eyeing! She rocks!
My other bestest buddy send me a GC to John Mayer’s gift shop. Does that girl know me or what?! She also rocks, of course!
My Catybug was so sad about having to go to school and missing spending my birthday with me that she got sick! Isn’t she so sweet! (Damn flu.)
I did not fall down on the sheet-of-ice parking lot taking the Chickeymonkey to school!
My hubby is going to make me my Birthday Lasagne for dinner!
My nonfat vanilla latte tastes the same as it did yesterday! Yes I was expecting it to be better. I thought I’d appreciate it more. Sadly, that’s not the case.
No wrinkles have appeared today to mark my age. Somehow, I keep thinking I’m a tree, and that I’ll get a new “ring” every year. Phew, I’m glad I’m not a tree.
I didn’t break a hip. Thank God. I was worried. Fortunately, I have nothing to report on the Brittle Boned Old Lady thing.

You are welcome to come over for dinner, cake and ice cream! I’ll even make ya a Purple Pig (which is the happiest most fun purple kool aid drink EVER)! I know, I’ve been a big tease the last few days, but aren’t you glad you stuck with me? NOW you can have cake!

::handing everyone a fork::

Getting Old

January

2007

gray hair losing color follicle old brunette

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Filed under: Chit Chat

Elsie : WIP #4

January

2007

custom cat portrait painting oil underpainting work in progress fine art

I worked on Elsie for quite a while yesterday, basically just painting in her dark fur. I’ll wait now until this layer is dry before I paint her ears and her next coat of fur. I love this look though, it reminds me of pen and ink. If it weren’t for the smell of oils in my studio, you might think so looking at it, too. Every single brushstroke will give her portrait that much more dimension, and it’ll make the painting that much more interesting to view.

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Filed under: Cat Portraits, Painting in Oils, Works in Progress

Almost My Birthday

January

2007

In a few days, I’m going to turn 36. My countdown always begins on New Years Day, since I’m a January baby and terrible at math, it makes my life easier. (Thanks, mom!)

Keep reading »

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Filed under: Birthday Wishes, Chit Chat

Elsie : WIP #3

January

2007

tiger cat portrait original oil painting pet art

Elsie’s eyes nearly painted themselves yesterday afternoon. Usually when I work in the eyes and nose, I know when I finish the underpainting what I’ll need to do to complete them on the next layer. She’s different, though. She’s been staring at me through graphite just waiting for color.

This connection I feel toward her is going to result in a portrait that surprises even me, I’m sure of it.

I’ll finish up her underpainting today.

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Filed under: Cat Portraits, Painting in Oils, Works in Progress

Cheeky : WIP #3

January

2007

longhair persian mix kitten custom oil portrait painting

Cheeky’s underpainting is complete, this gorgeous fluffy kitty is getting his second portrait painted in a larger size (6×6 from 4×4), since momma liked the first one so much.

I’ll be working on one more underpainting today, so back to the studio I go!

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Filed under: Cat Portraits, Painting in Oils, Works in Progress

Willie : WIP #3

January

2007

Here’s Willie’s underpainting, in stages, as I progressed on his pretty tuxedo kitty cat self today.

The first thing I always complete is the background. There’s a hint of teal in his eyes and the whites of his fur, so I pulled that into the background to bring out his eyes more. I finished his background last weekend – but with everything else going on I hadn’t had a chance to show you that yet.

Today I began with his eyes, then nose – then ears. Then I stopped and giggled because that just looked silly – so there you have it. Silly tuxedo cat portrait in progress.

Stage two was getting the colored tones of his fur down. Blues, greens, reds and creamy tans are nice reflective colors on a black cat – they go down first. Then I went back and deepened just some of the darks – particularly his cheekbones and eyes. After I worked in all of the dark fur areas, I pulled medium shades into the white areas and will lighten that further with the next layer of oil.

And there you have it. I wanted to show you that second progress shot so you can really get a feel for how I paint fur. I literally paint one hair or very small groups of hairs at a time for the underpainting – and then I’ll paint probably two more layers of fur, more individually for more depth.

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Filed under: Cat Portraits, Painting in Oils, Works in Progress

Delurking Week

January

2007

Lurk: to read messages on an internet discussion forum (as a newsgroup or chatroom) without contributing. Even M-W has amended it’s definition of Lurk to include something specific to the WWW. Isn’t that cute? I thought so.

Well now that I have your attention (I think it was the smiley paper plate that sucked you right in, wasn’t it?) you may as well know that I know you’re here. I can see you right through these little black dots I call my eyes (pretend I’m the plate – just work wth me). You stop by, day after day – and once in a while you’ll say something sweet that makes me smile (see? I’m smiling. I do that occasionally.), and then you disappear for days or weeks on end. And I miss you. I really do.

What does that leave me with? A sad smiley plate. That’s what. And how pathetic is a sad smiley plate? Very.

So please, I’m begging you now, give me something to look back on and smile about – the good old day when you commented, just that simple “HI” and little wavey smiley guy that made me grin. Then you can just click away and when you return next time, feel free to resume lurking. I won’t bug you until this time next year. I swear.

Also, if the results of this apparently mild-mannered comment-whoring experiment are totally embarassing, I am going to go pout and hide my blog under my bed or in the back of my closet. (just a little fyi.)

P.S. on an art related note, I was asked by a Windows Vista team member (yeah! seriously!) to enter something into this new Windows Vista WOW experiment-slash-contest. So I did. You can go browse, or just go directly to my contribution and vote on how many stars you think it should get.

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Filed under: Chit Chat

Stacie in Green

January

2007

Here’s a fun 10″ x 10″ monochromatic oil portrait of Stacie I just completed. Stacie is an enthusiastic teenager with bright blue eyes that I photographed for this portrait last weekend. She asked for greens – lime being her favorite color. When I started working the piece, I decided to leave her eye color alone since they’re such a beautiful shade of blue – and I love the way they pop against the lime.

These are quick paintings, and since I couldn’t continue the lovebirds (indigo isn’t dry yet), I decided to spend a few hours doing this one. These don’t require an underpainting, so they only take a little while to complete, painting wet-in-wet.

My monochromatic paintings consist of one primary color (green), one light (yellow) and one dark (indigo) to contrast. Including her original eye color brought my color palette to 5 colors for this painting (french ultramarine & white).

Makes ya smile, doesn’t she? She’s a pretty young lady, sweet as pie, too.

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Filed under: Monochromatic Paintings, Painting in Oils, People Portraits, Works in Progress