New orchid flower painting...

This is a recent floral painting of mine. It is an 24"x18" original orchid acrylic painting on canvas.

To see it up on the website, please visit here.

H.P. Lovecraft Festival, my new website, & sketches...

It has been a while since I've felt like posting, I've been spending most of my online time focusing on getting my website up. If you'd like to take a peek it's at http://www.lisarusso.com

In my last post, I promised a return to sketching. I did in fact start sketching again, but became very behind in scanning and posting... I think it's time for another fresh start, fresh start number 7 perhaps? I'm not certain, I haven't been counting. I'm also not certain when I'll start up again, but I hope it will be soon. Also, I think the goal this time will be 100 faces in approximately 100 days. 365 just seems a bit too far out there for me right now...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, CA at the Warner Grand Theater. The image above is of a statue of H.P.L. with a bit of Cthulu-esque action happening at the side. I was able to see some fantastic Lovecraft inspired shorts while I was there as well as a short inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. I took some other pictures while I was there, some of which I intend to share in other posts.

My newest angel painting and slacking off in general...

This is my newest original angel painting. The painting measures 8x10 and is acrylic on canvas. Possibly the start of a series, she is titled Dreaming.

I've been loathe to post as I have completed slacked on my sketching challenge. I've decided to start again from scratch, I'm not sure I'll ever make it to 365 without significant lulls, but it is good practice nonetheless. However, since I intend to slack this weekend and it's a longer then average weekend due to the holiday, I will most likely begin again sometime next week.

LACMA "Fashioning Fashion" and some sketches...

At the Resnick Pavilion, LACMA had three fabulous shows. Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700–1915, Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico, and the Art of the Sensual. They have all closed now, but I went a number of times to see the exhibits and take photos for possible reference. The photo above is one that I took while at Fashioning Fashion; I have no idea how those dresses survived that era so fabulously.

I haven't completed any new paintings, but I have been plugging away at my sketches. What surprises me is that sometimes sketches will work out that I hadn't expected to and sometimes ones that I expected to be epic fails end up looking okay. I am still doing other sketches as prep work for paintings, but it's an interesting exercise, focusing on sketching consistently on one subject.

Anyway, here are the sketches:

3_18_11/48, 49 3_22_11/50, 51

3_22_11/52 3_23_11/53, 54, 55

3_24_11/56, 57, 58 3_25_11/59

3_25_11/60, 61 3_29_11/62 3_30_11/63, 64

Pink Saucer Magnolia Flowers and sketches...

This is my newest painting, it is of two pink saucer magnolia flowers, one just beginning to bloom and the other very open. Untitled as of yet, it is an original acrylic painting on canvas that measures 11x14.

The tsunami/earthquake in Japan has filled me with such sadness. I very rarely watch the news, but for some reason I was watching as it hit and I saw the ocean engulf the land with such power. I could not believe what I saw. I still am full of shock and disbelief when I think about it.

I am a bit behind in my sketches, but I'm hoping to catch up by next week.

3_1_11/32, 33 3_2_11/34, 35

3_3_11/36, 37 3_7_11/38, 39

3_8_11/40, 41 3_9_11/42, 43

3_11_11/44, 45 3_16_11/46, 47

A special request painting and a scanning party...

This painting is a bit different for me, it was by special request. The painting is a 9x12 acrylic painting inspired by the Virgin of Guadalupe and titled Virgen de Guadalupe. Usually when I paint people, I stick to angels, fairies, and mermaids; but I found myself unable to say no to this request, so, there she is.

Also, I have some sketches below. I was a bit behind in scanning, so I had a scanning party and scanned them all in.

2_15_11/20, 21 2_17_11/22, 23

2_18_11/24, 25 2_26_11/26 2_23_11/27

2_23_11/28, 29 2_25_11/30, 31

Musings on a trip to Descanso Gardens

I took the photograph above at Descanso Gardens on Thursday. I love the majesty of trees, I am drawn to them. The light was fading and I snapped this shot thinking of my grandfather. We were visiting the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and we went outside to the water lily pond. He said to me, art is beautiful, but it is nothing to the beauty of nature. When I saw this scene, it struck me, the very truth of his words. I strive for beauty in my art, but sometimes one single look at the arching trees above can simply floor me. I took a number of photographs on my visit, but this one feels how I was feeling.

I'd like to share a painting, but I do not have one that feels right to share right now. For now, here are my sketches. They are all imperfect and flawed, but some may have the potential with some work to possibly be something more at some point. For now, they are practice.

2_4_11/12, 13 2_8_11/14

2_8_11/15 2_9_11/16, 17

2_11_11/18, 19

Happy New Year!

This year is the year of the rabbit, I'm hoping to paint at least one rabbit this year; but, for now, here is one small bunny sketch. I've started sketching faces again, my goal is 365 in one year's time. Some days I sketch one, some days more then one, some days not at all. This is my second attempt at this and I expect I will end up stopping and starting anew this time as well, but I still think it's worth the attempt. This time my start date was January 26th.

Here are my sketches thus far:

1_26_11/1, 2, 3

1_27_11/4, 5, 6

1_31_11/7 2_1_11/8 2_2_11/9

2_3_11/10, 11

A small new floral painting...

This 5x7 acrylic painting of a pink rose and a rose bud is titled Alegria. Alegria means joy in Spanish. It is a gift for my grandfather, who has always influenced me to strive in part to be a better artist, but also to be a better person.

I have done some sketches, but have largely faltered in the goal I set for myself. My grandfather is ill right now and I haven't felt much like drawing or painting. I do intend to get back on track, but I'm not sure when, so mainly for today, I wanted to share this small painting and my intentions to do better at some point.

Not so Zombie Claire, a new painting...

This 8x10 original acrylic angel painting is based on Claire, the editor in chief of the magazine ImagineFX. They hosted a competition based on the concept of turning her into a zombie. I'm more of a traditional artist than a digital artist and they're more of a digital magazine than a traditional one so my concept was to paint an angel portrait of Claire, then scan her in and turn her into a zombie with Photoshop. I couldn't bring myself to do it. So, a not so zombie Claire painting...

Anyway, there were perhaps seven photographs of Claire to choose from. I liked the two below the best, so I sketched them both and chose between them. Actually now I like the other one too, so possibly another Claire painting in the works in the future, or possibly not. Those two sketches were also sketch 2 and 3 on 8-13-10 of my sketch challenge.



Below are the works in progress photos of the painting:



I meant to post this sooner but have been very distracted lately. I'm also woefully behind on my sketch challenge. I've done some, but not many. 365 in as many days is likely a goal that I'm going to miss, but I'll try to do some scanning in and post again hopefully Friday. However if this goes anything like when I said I'd post on Tuesday around a month ago, well it could be a while...