Painting of Blue, Boston Terrier Puppy

I just finished this painting last night.  This is Blue, my friend Lynn's Boston Terrier painted on 18"x24" gallery-wrapped canvas.  The photo I used as reference was taken with her cell phone when "Boo Boo" was just a puppy.   She wanted an abstract background with reds and yellows.

Blue has one blue eye and one brown one.   And yes, that is his little penis!! HA

Doodlephant! Zentangle-inspired painting

I have been wanting to use my new ZentangleTM skills in a large scale painting and here it is:

I'm calling it "Doodlephant."  It's 4'x3' on stretched canvas.  I really enjoyed doing this!  It's a little blurry because the lighting wasn't too good when I took the photo. But who cares-- it hangs now on a bare wall in my newly finished basement.  I still have several more walls that need paintings!

Today I am finishing a painting of one of my friend's dogs.  Then I have to work on a piece that I donated to a charity auction.  Then I'm doing some more animals with wine on leftover wood blocks.  AND I want to get started with some doodle stitching!!

My ideas are flowing much faster than my body is creating them...

Tennis Ball Dog Painting Series

I started playing tennis at 46... I can't believe that I waited until this age to learn this fun sport!! I have met a great group of friends and it inspired me to paint a series of dogs with tennis balls.  I got bored after three paintings (my fourth is a half-painted pit bull.)

But first, back in 2006, I was commissioned to paint this black lab with three tennis balls (not actually part of the series):

It has become a popular seller on my ETSY page.
Then I used my neighbor's dogs as models for the next three paintings:

"Cali", my next door neighbor's Weimaraner

"Holly", my neighbor's terrier/poodle mutt

"Holbrook", another neighbor's golden retriever.

Thanks for checking out my paintings of dogs with tennis balls! 

How to Make a One-Color Screen Print Image in Photoshop

I have been wanting to dabble with screen printing.  I was looking online about how to convert a digital color image into a one color (black and white) screen print image and there was nothing very straight forward.  So I played with Photoshop and came up with this easy way to do it:

Starting image:

In photoshop, I used the magic eraser tool set at tolerance of 30 to remove the background color:

I cleaned up the little specks left over in the background with the eraser tool.  The next step it to convert to black and white. In my Adobe Photoshope Elements Editor on my Mac, I selected "Enhance" and then "Convert to Black and White".  You can play with the different options to see which one gives you the right amount of black vs. white that you are looking for. 

Change your foreground color to black and background color to white using your color picker.  

The final step is to select >Filter and then >Stamp.  Use the sliding scale to adjust your image to give you the amount of black for the screen print. 

Taaa daaa!  I will post the final screen printed item when I finish.