I wanted to show you this last week, but I couldn’t. I wanted to have a chance for Laura to receive her copy before I showed anyone. Now that she has hers, I can show you mine.

This, my original painting from Laura’s photo, is one of my favorite paintings. Within just a few weeks of completing this piece and making it available, the original painting was marked sold and I wondered if I would ever be able to have a copy of it even for myself.

At 18″ x 36″, the painting is massive and took nearly 10 scans at 300dpi, painstakingly pieced together over hours of waiting and praying that my virtual memory wouldn’t crash my system. My critical eye saw areas that needed smoothing, better blending, balance, and when something didn’t match up quite right, I scanned that area again.

It took me several hours, and several Tylenol. The end result is a file. One single huge 90MB file records every little brushstroke that I invested in this Heron.

Finally, I was able to have it put it to print. On canvas, even. Gallery wrapped canvas. It’s not quite the original size, at 15″ x 30″ it’s a few inches smaller than the original painting – but it’s wonderful, and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. It’s not as crystal clear as my painting (of course I’m very critical, it is my work I’m looking at), but it is good. It’s better than any of those other joe-shmoe prints at Target, the quality and durability FAR surpasses any of those.

Of course I had to have one for myself, and it is only right that since Laura permitted me to use her amazing photograph as reference material, she get a print as well.

Now he’s a focal point, of course, right beside the piano, you see him when you walk from the kitchen into the living room and family room. When I pull Chickeymonkey’s hair back in the morning she has two places to turn her head toward while I do her hair. First her eyes are on Jesus (a framed print), and then she turns to the Heron.

“Look at the Heron”, I tell her. And we both do. He rocks.

(I have not decided yet whether this print will be made available to the public.)

Back in December one of my paintings, Coon, was published on the cover of the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association, or JAVMA. I wrote about it here, if you want to have a look.

The other day, I received a photo from one of my clients who purchased a large print of that painting after she saw it on the cover. It is just too cute not to share!

Meet Rhonda, Flicka and Kismet. Aren’t they adorable? Rhonda gave me permission to show you her lovely self with her babies (thank you, Rhonda!) – and I have to admit, I love seeing photos of my artwork hanging up in their homes around their owners. That says to me “I look at this all the time, and still love it!” I love that. It’s way better than those photos of my artwork in the dumpster with ketchup splattered on the cracked glass. Those hurt, man. (j/k, that hasn’t happened. I swear.)

Rhonda also shared this other photo of her babies, checking for bugs. They’ve grown a bit but aren’t they the cutest little guys? They look pretty darn thorough. She could charge for their services, really. I would hire them in a heartbeat.

I get so mushy gushy when I get the privilege of sharing the love that my clients feel over their animals and pets. It’s a whole different level of love and compassion, I think. One that makes most people say “Huh? What do you care? It’s just a squirrel.” (I’m just sayin’, for example, you know.) It’s a special bond between human and animals that only other animal lovers can really understand. It’s such a cool thing.

< -- This is where you pretend I've gone into a long emotional discourse about the relationship between people and critters, nod and think "yeah, I know exactly what you mean." -->

I am finally starting to catch up with my “to-do” list. Here are some things I’ve crossed off my list, and I still have to get visuals to go along with everything for you.

• Finish up a blog design, MommyHelp.com. That one was an EW project that launched last week, it turned out really neat, new moms will love the tips and information on Breastfeeding and parenting. There’s a forum there, too – lots of nice supportive women there. Check it out!
• Another EW blog design project that I just launched this week is The End User. This is my first fluid blog design for EW, and it’s that black & white one I talked about. It wound up being a really neat layout and project – even though I had to hold myself back from changing just one little hex code to bright red or something. The urge was there, and it persisted – but alas. It’s black, white, and shades of grey, and I shouldn’t even be showing you yet because I still have some tweaking to do. Go on and have a look anyway.
• Live.Love.Read. It just so happy over there. My eyeballs really enjoy it, it’s like therapy. Go. Get happy. I’ll wait.
• One of my blogging buddies enjoyed one of my Ten Little Fishies so much, she wanted a print of it. I’ve got one sitting beside me that I’ll be matting and sending out for her by Monday.
• Sketching Titto for his next portrait – he’s such a ham. His second portrait will be much more colorful as he’s preening and really has a gorgeous spread of tailfeathers. I’ll get his sketch up here later today.
• Two Mother-Daughter banquets. Two nights in a row this week, I’m telling you – it’s been a smidge busy over here this week.
• Balancing the checkbook. Next on my list. Ugh.

I still have some things to add to my list, too! I need to respond to some inquiries and add a photoblog design project, and I also need to find an hour to tell you about the wonderful experience I just had sending off my Great Blue Heron painting to his new home. The whole experience and sequence of events – beginning with meeting Laura – will leave you just as astonished as it did me. Divine intervention indeed.

I also need to tell you about my neighbor. This lovely woman we’ve lived next to for 11 years is not doing so well. I’ve been assisting her whenever she calls for help, and last weekend I waited with her as the ambulance came to take her to the hospice where she is now staying. She’s had trouble breathing for a couple of years, and initially when she was diagnosed they gave her 6 months. She’s well beyond that, but now she’s suffering and the pain she feels just from the effort it takes her to inhale and exhale breaks my heart. I’m going to cut some irises from her garden and take them to her today, and I’ll probably be saying goodbye. It’s very sad, but I’m glad that they are keeping her as comfortable as possible, she shouldn’t have to suffer through her final days. If you’d keep her in your thoughts and prayers, I know she would feel comforted knowing everyone wishes her peace. It seems odd, and I may even sound glib writing about her, but she’s honestly ready to pass on, she has been. She is tired of having to experience the pain of her body failing her before the Lord is ready to take her.

Mother’s Day, aaah Mother’s Day. What do you mom’s want for Mother’s Day? Me, I shared my secret with a friend, and I’m not going to spoil it here but wait patiently to see if my family knows me as well as they think they do.

  

  

  

  

  

I had the most fun opportunity to illustrate a children’s book for a college student – without giving everything away, I’m sure my illustrations are a big hint to the storyline!

I started doodling late one night, refined my doodles into line drawings, then colored them in using colored pencil on a really smooth illustration paper – scanned them in and further enhanced them for print using Paint Shop Pro. I’m so tickled with the results, I just had to share.

Which little fishy is your favorite?

I’ve finally got all of my painting scans pieced together and uploaded to my portfolio, so I thought I’d give you a quick rundown of what is on display with more quality images than the initial window display photo in my “Now on Exhibit” post.

I posted the Great Blue Heron scan here in my blog because the image in my portfolio is really pretty small.

Here are all the thumbs (linked to their painting details in my portfolio):

Great Blue Heron

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Monochromatic Rainbow Silly Kids

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“Eye Ate It” Series
View these paintings in my portfolio
Buy “Eye Ate It” paintings in my shop

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Kiki the Calico Cat

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All paintings © 2007 Leanne Wildermuth, All rights reserved.

All of these oroginal oil paintings are available for purchase, feel free to contact me if you’re interested in purchasing any of them.

Great Blue Heron
18? x 36? Oil Painting
1-1/2″ Profile Gallery Wrapped Canvas
© 2007 Leanne Wildermuth
All Rights Reserved
(view portfolio for availability)

Want to see more detail?

Keep reading »

If you’d like to “walk around”, click the pic for the (not narrated) video, walking up to the display and all that fun stuff you would get to do if you were HERE. (Update: I converted the thing to a windows media file and it’s much smaller and faster loading, sorry about that humongo file!) I’ll get back over there when the tags go up, in the evening, when there isn’t a funky glare from the street.

These are all available for purchase, so if you’re interested in any of them you can contact me for pricing and I can give you the number to call MidCoast Fine Arts to purchase through the gallery.

I did it! I was up until the wee hours of the morning (11pm is late for me, c’mon.) and I think I need to buy stock in aspercreme or something, but he’s done. What a magnificent bird Laura captured, I’m so excited to have her blessing to create this gorgeous 18×36 portrait from one of her amazing photographs. (I can’t find the link to it – Laura – help!)

This is the final piece that will be displayed with my collection. I’ve got a ton of paperwork, scanning etc. to do (and I’m waiting for this guy to dry) so I’ll check back with you with photos of everything on display and a YouTube Vid once they’re all hung. Keep in mind, this is a “window exhibit”, meaning I have a 16″ wide by 5″ high glass enclosed window area where they’ll be exhibited for 2 months to about 30,000 people who walk through this particular area. If I had more pieces in my collection, I’d have a regular gallery show, but since my paintings are never in my posession for very long (yay!), I couldn’t hog up a whole gallery with one wall worth of work. Still, it’s a great thing to have the exposure on a local level.

View work in progress

I’ve just completed the underpainting on this Great Blue Heron that I began (ahem) last year. This is one that I’ve procrastinated that needs a lot of detail work yet, so it really was imperative that I get this underpainting completed so that I can spend some quality time with this piece once my other show pieces are ready. It’s 18″ wide by 36″ tall, an awesome size for this bird painting.

View work in progress