molliechounard.com » Drawing

Plein Air Pieces

Mollie — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:22:33 +0000

I finally have a couple of the Plein Air pieces to show. This first one is the one that won Third Place in the show.

St. Charles Plein Air Event

Mollie — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:06:08 +0000

In the last two weeks I’ve been working exclusively on pieces for the St. Charles Plein Air Art Event. Including a couple Quick Paint Events, where you basically have three hours to complete an entire piece on location. My overall experience was great! Working outdoors was a nice change of pace, I couldn’t have planned more beautiful weather, and my love of architecture was more than appeased by the abundance of historic storefronts and homes in the area.

However, I wont lie and tell you that everything went smoothly. I was completely out of my element, I’m not used to painting landscapes, and a few pieces ended up in the garbage. I had a difficult time loosening up, and I had to push through to the end of some seriously rough paintings. But in the end I find that I would do it all again. I learned a ton, and had a great time doing it.

This afternoon was the reception for the show. Which was a big success! One of my pieces won Third Place and I sold a piece! The amazing thing about the piece that sold is that I nearly gave up on it, in fact I ended up cutting up the original painting and putting it back together into a three-dimensional piece. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good photo of it before it sold, but I did manage to snap a photo with my cell phone.

As usual, I will try and scan and upload images of the pieces. Which reminds me that I have some pieces at Framations Gallery that I never got photos of either.

Tim the Unexpected Visitor

Mollie — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:04:18 +0000

I found inspiration for a new project in an email, if you can believe that! A friend and her daughters tried to rescue a baby squirrel, they named Tiny Tim. Attached to the email were several pictures she had taken of him with the family (see below).

“…we fed him a banana last night, and he fell asleep in the palm of my hand. We put him in his basket outside on the back porch for the night and this morning, he was still curled up sleeping in there around 7:30am…”

As I looked at the images and read about him, I kept thinking how adorable he was. So small and vulnerable, but also brave and sweet. I wondered about his courage and what made him unique; before long I was thinking up a story about his life and how he came to be there.

I’ve wanted to write and illustrate a children’s book for a long time and the story about little Tim really inspired me to do something about it. So much so, that I’ve been working on a plot for a book for the last week or so. My husband has agreed to be my co-author; and while it isn’t about a little squirrel, I plan to work him into the story somehow.

I’m sure it’s going to be a long slow process because I don’t know the first thing about writing a book, but I will never know if I don’t try. Wish me luck, if anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Art in Progress

Mollie — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:02:39 +0000

As promised, here are some images of the pieces I’ve been working on for the “Puppies are Biodegradable Show.” Please note that these images are of pieces I recently started and are thus still in progress.

It might be hard to see, but the background consists of paper glued on and painted over to create texture. The angry red-orange slash in the middle of the painting was part of the original piece. I thought to take it out, but now looking at it, I might try and make it work. The sketch in the bottom left corner is the start of the keg and the surgical supplies will be strewn about on the ground in front of the dog.

This seems a little lopsided, which might be a product of me skewing the image to cut out the wall behind the picture without cropping anything out. As you can see, it’s pretty basic pen and ink over color washes. I really need to introduce some contrast in the color area, it’s a little brown on brown right now.

More to come soon.

Diamonds

Mollie — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:22:52 +0000

New drawing “Diamonds” (for lack of a better name). Pen & Ink on paper, 8.5×11. I’m happy with the building in the bottom right corner, but the castle on the left isn’t good. There are flaws in perspective on the dome that I can’t fix without major surgery LOL.