New Elephant Painting!!

SEPTEMBER 2015

Woohoo! And everyone I told I was starting over didn't think I'd be able to do it! >:) WELL I DID!

I finished this picture the day before Amelia's birthday, haha! Although, since then I've added a few orange drips to the background, but other than that you guys aren't missing much! It's 9x12 instead of 11x14 too, so it was easier to finish because it wasn't as big. I really like this version better than the old one. Just shows how a few months can show that much improvement, whether you've been doing a lot of artwork or not!

As far as I know Amelia doesn't read these because she's too busy being a nursing student :P So we should be good on the surprise factor! Just thought I'd show you wonderful readers the update to Amelia's picture, and I guess I can update you on a little IRL stuff! Lots of cool things have been happening!

UPDATES

So, I know I've been bad with not uploading a blog post, but I've been busy! I found out I'll be the very first person to graduate from BHC with an AFA degree, since it's very new and no one has pursued it before! So that's exciting! I've been SWAMPED with my classes, though! I forgot I was taking pretty much 3 history classes! My Art History and Archaeology classes aren't too bad, but my Western Civilization class is kicking my butt! I hardly have time to breathe, it seems like. My Life Drawing class is going alright. I feel like everything is starting to click in my brain when it comes to the human figure now! (:

I'm also the president of the Art Collective at BHC for the 2nd year in a row! We already have big things planned, and we're having an extra meeting about our first big collaboration project tomorrow! I also GOT MY FIRST JOB!! I'll be working in an artsy atmosphere and I'm so psyched about it! I've been asking for this job for almost 5 years and I finally talked to the right people and now I'm hired there! I start training tomorrow too, I'm so nervous!

So yeah, that's about all I have to update you lovely people on! I hope you peeps are doing great, because other than how stressed I am I'm fantastic for once! :D

Elephant Watercolor FAIL!

So, I've been working on this watercolor painted elephant for my best friend since the beginning on APRIL, and I finally finished it last night at around 12:30am!

And guess what...

I hate it :D And I plan to start over. And her birthday is in 10 days. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I'm trying to decide if I should make it smaller and just redraw the outline of the elephant, or if I should stay the same size and use my light table to save me some time.

I mainly don't like it because it turned out WAY too dull, gaudy, and I don't like the color choices I made. Pretty much the only thing I like about it is the small portion of background at the bottom where I let the color run and do its own thing. Other than that, not really impressed by it. Which is a bummer considering I've put 20+ hours into it because I'm still very new to watercolor and I'm still nervous with it. Starting over would also mean that I'm going to have to get my dip pen and India ink out and ink all of my designs again. But since I plan to not have as many designs on it in the second attempt it should be fine. I don't mind inking it, it's actually sort of relaxing to me.

So here's what the fail version looks like:

Not the best picture, I know. But it's just WAY too gaudy and I don't like it. It's not good enough for my best friend. Maybe in the future I'll try to sell it, but for now it's going to be put away for a while. If anyone would like to purchase it, please email me at: gustafsonhaley@gmail.com we can make a deal there.