Pet portrait commission of Frankie in watercolor on 10 x 8 inches on watercolor block. Pet portrait commissions are available in my Etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/PaintingsbyMarlene
Frankie
Five Labs Commission
I had just finished a commission of five Labradors. They were painted on stretched canvas in oils. And upon the client requests, they were also framed with black floater frames.
Kennedy Twenty/20 Exhibit Awards
I proud to announce that I was awarded Honorable Mention in the Kennedy Twenty/20 Juried Show. The juror was non other than Rob Stewart of PBS KVIE’s “Rob on the Road”.
Kennedy Twenty20 Juried Exhibit
I’m proud to announced that I am one of twenty artists selected for this show held at the Kennedy Gallery in midtown Sacramento. As one of the twenty artists, we had to produced 25-8 x 8 inch paintings of a chosen theme.
Below are six of the 25 paintings that I had started in January. My theme is still life in cold wax and oils. I wanted to work in cold wax for its translucency. I found that I became more abstract with the background, that I’m freer to put in mark making and to create stencils for texture. I hope to continued working in cold wax.
The preview will be this Thursday from noon to 8 pm. The exhibit will run through May to July 4th.
Two Tiny Watercolor Palettes
I had purchased this cute little wooden watercolor palette from Etsy store, Go Draw, a few weeks ago. It’s made out of wood with 15 porcelain wells and mixing area. It is small enough to attached to a pocket size sketchbook with bull clips. But after not using it for a week, couple of the paints dried up and came loose. My only complaint.
I also have a metal one that is a size of a business card still have all the paints in the pans after many weeks of no use. This is from Expeditionary Art and this is the Pocket Palette. It has 14 pans which works very well for me. I carry only two water brushes, fountain pen, bull clips and a sketchbook along with a white uniPosca and a tiny water spray. I switching back to this palette.
Expeditionary Art does make art tool kit cases to fit a sketchbook and an art supplies. I bought the smallest one that fits a pocket size sketchbook 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. The case measured 4-3/4″ x 7-1/2″ (12cm x 19cm) closed. But with what I carry, it only fitted the sketchbook, fountain pen, white pen, business cards and shop towel. I couldn’t put my bull clips and second water brush and the uniPosca white marker. When I closed it, it was bulky. I love the idea but have to pass on this one. So Expeditionary Art was kind enough to let me returned it.
I think I’ll just stick with my pencil pouch with the pocket palette minus the go draw palette. By the way the pencil pouch is from Cavallini Papers & Co in San Francisco. I might get their larger pouch from one of their distributors.
Mosley
A commissioned watercolor portrait. Such a delight to paint. The challenge was making sure that the toy colors did not compete with the black and white portrait of Mosley. To solve that I worked on lightened the eyes and lightened up the colors in the toy. It worked!
Pencil sketch 
Traced pencil sketch to watercolor paper 
The colors of the dog toy competed with the portrait. 
Toy reference
Pet portraits are available in my Etsy store, PaintingsbyMarlene. Portraits can be done in either oils or watercolor.
Daily Sketches
Some favorite sketches in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook. It’s the Delta series with nice white watercolor paper that doesn’t buckle. Most of my sketches are center around my garden. (except for the pear) Enjoy!
To see my complete series of daily sketches go to my Flickr album, Daily Sketches.
Logos Book Exhibit
My still life paintings will be on exhibit at Logos Book from April 3rd to April 30th. It is composed mainly of fruits and some vegetables, a china rice bowl, a bright orange vase with a purple flower and even a copy of a Matisse that served as a background. Most are painted purely in oils with brushes but there is one in cold wax and oils and one palette knife. Prices ranged from $95 up to $180.
