Owls...New Mizzle Friends

As an artist it is really important to showcase your work as often as possible.  For the past 2 years, I've been showing my work at one night events every few months.  Last December, I displayed my work at the Santa Ana Art walk with Orange County Creatives.  I never know what to expect.  Each event is so different from the other because of various factors like weather, combination of artists showing, the personalities of the friends and family who come to show their support for those artists, etc.  This last event was not my best one, but it was still beneficial.  A woman had seen my work at this art walk and loved my mixed media work.  She has commissioned me to create a mixed media piece for her that included a forest, my characters, and owls. 

I immediately began researching images of various owls trying to find "the right one" to become friends with the Mizzles.  But I ran into a problem... I loved them all.  As I began doing various sketches of owls, I began wondering why I haven't drawn owls before.  I mean, my mom absolutely loves owls and for some reason I have never created any owl themed art work for her. That is about to change.  2013 welcomed the Mermizzles.  2014 looks like it is going to be year of the owl, although, it might still be too early to determine this year's theme.

Here are a few of the sketches I did of owls:

So, back to the commission...  I fell in love with a few of the owls I drew and decided to include them into the mixed media piece. I've had a lot of fun putting this together.  Here are a few pictures of it in progress.  Usually, when I begin a mixed media pieces I create a background first with layers of scrapbooking paper.  At this point, I don't usually have a plan.  I like the feeling I have as I allow the art work to happen and grow on its own.  The downside to this "organic" way of creating is that all of the scenes always have a simple horizon line; there is no linear perspective.  Once my background is ready, I lay tracing paper over it and being drawing in my characters. The characters are then transferred to a watercolor paper, where I begin to paint them. Sometimes I wait until they are glued to the art work before I paint them, but I tend to run into the problem of glue drying on the surface and creating these white spots as I paint.  I always think I'm being extra careful, but I always manage to get the glue on the surface.

Here is the final result:



I took it to the Huntington Beach Art League meeting last week and entered it into the mixed media category.  It won an honorable mention. 



I loved working on this painting that I began working on a second version before this one was complete.  I'll be talking about the process of the new painting in my next post.