Jamie of the Jungle and Big Cat Rescue

Jamie of the Jungle

This was a private commission I finished in July. I was contacted by the owner of Big Cat Rescue to illustrate a fantasy portrait of her daughter. It was a dream job involving a beautiful young woman, wild cats and a whole lot of creative freedom. The client gave me a lot of information and photos to use as inspiration and reference. The main goal was to create a fantasy portrait of Jamie accompanied by icons of her life. She is surrounded by wild cats that she has rescued, nursed and raised, orchids which she grows in her backyard and a swan staff which is her totem animal.

If you like wild cats, rescue stories and wine visit their site.....they now have bottles of wine for sale!

Teaser - Details

Serval Detail

Swan Staff Detail

Orchid Detail

These are some details of a painting I am working on. It's almost complete. After it is sent off to the client I'll post the full image for your review. I'll talk a bit about my process as well.

Cat Queen WIP

Detail of commission for a cat in Queen Elizabeth dress. Working on it. Almost finished.

Black Friday Sale

Set of four pendants with silver chain for $25.00

Set of two Gerber Daisy pendants with silver chain for $15.00

I just updated my etsy shop to include some pendants and chains featuring my artwork. In addition to some glass jewelry I also have some new prints and small oils for sale including a framed print of "White Sangria".

For a SUPER discount you can plug in HESSBLOG1 for 25% off of any and all orders. This will only last until 11:59PM Cyber Monday. A special discount for my special readers!

Happy Shopping!

Patterns and Stuff

I'm slowly branching out my portfolio to include pattern and ornamental illustrations/designs to target the licensing industry. This is only a very small beginning. These patterns were based off of my previous post on the "White Sangria" wine label. I created the blue bird afterwards but thought it fit the theme.

Andrew Loomis Portrait Studies

Copy of Andrew Loomis Portrait Study

4" x 2"

I have some more small paintings to post but I first would like to spend some time on portrait studies. It is important to constantly study how different painters handle color, value and shape handling. James Gurney mentions in his amazingly informative blog the necessity to copy other artists to truly understand the way that artist's method. The study above is from Andrew Loomis's "Creative Illustration". He has a page of four portraits with different tones, colors, hues and the skin's effect with each palette.

I made a black and white photo copy of Loomis's four small portraits on one letter size sheet. I matt mediumed it. Then tried to copy the colors and tones he was using. This is the second one I did. I found the reflective light to be the most exciting part of the painting. Afterwards I found another image of the portraits online (the link above) and see a different color combo that has much more depth. That's what I get for using a bad color photo copy for my reference!