The Art of Nicoletta Ceccoli

Nicoletta Ceccoli is an Italian Artist who has illustrated many books including children's books, and is known for her dreamy and surreal as well as fairytale themes. She has won many awards for her amazing work, including the Andersen prize as best Italian illustrator of the year in 2001. She's been in several galleries such as Roq la Rue in Seattle and Dorothy Circus in Rome. She lives and works in San Marino, Italy.

Take a look at some of her art below and let your imagination flow! :)

Lori Earley on CultureCatch

Interview with Lori Earley, an artist who paints very unique portraits of women in a surreal and strange kind of way using oils. Because much of her focus is on portraits, she's become very good at what she does as you will see when you watch! :)

Tim Gagnon painting tips on painting horse hair

I came across this video from Tim Gagnon, a very talented artist who shares alot of info on his technique, on tips for painting hair on horses. Some great tips on how anyone, with the basic use of a liner brush, can apply hairs, albeit with much patience! I especially love the background! So take a look and hope you learn something valuable! :)

Hummingbird Gift

My lastest painting, which was also a gift for my mom for Mother's Day. She's always been fond of hummingbirds and even has a feeder hanging on the patio. This painting was, in fact, based on a picture I took awhile back ago with my own camera. It sure came in handy as a nice reference for this painting. This posed a new challenge for me with a small bird and a solid object (the feeder), which I needed to be more precise with. I was fairly pleased with the background, although I could have toned down the white lights a bit. Also, because the frame didn't come with a glass cover, I put a few layers of varnish medium on top to finish it off. But overall I was pleased and my mom loved it! And that's all that counted for this occassion! :)

Mother's Day Surprise...

My next painting is actually going to be a little surprise for mommo, which is the perfect gift in my case where finances are tight right now. All I will say is it involves a little bird that she loves, so this will be a new challenge for me. After all is said and done on Sunday, I may go ahead and post it for all to see!

Until then, hope all you mom's of the world have a very wonderful Mother's Day! Thank you to all moms who bore us and took care of us, supported us and we're there to comfort us! Thank you for making the decision to keep us, and to keep me! Otherwise I would have nothing to share, nothing to be thankful for, nothing to contribute to this life. So THANK YOU!!! :)

Chrissy & Missy painting

I just finished one of the most challenging paintings to date - a commissioned work of two pug dogs named Chrissy and Missy! It was a bit intimidating yes, but remembering all the tips and techniques thus far, I put them to the test in this painting, built on it with values and layers, gave it a real painterly kind of look and it actually came out alot nicer than I expected, especially the colors. I realize commission work is going to be a bit outside the guidelines one would normally work with when doing a painting, e.g., using an odd number of elements, using elements in different sizes, using one element to focus on and so on. I didn't wrestle with this, however, and just approached it with the client's request in mind, who was actually a friend of mine.

This probably took me about 3 days to complete, putting in around 2-4 hours a day or so. The hardest part was putting the detail in around their 'mugs' which had alot of folds and curves, but paying close attention to detail and just keeping things simple made all the difference here. I started with a value layer, then built on top of that with a few more to bring out the darks and lights. The background was the funnest I'd say, again keeping it simple with large brushstrokes and little detail so as not to compete with the main subjects.

Doing this piece definitely tested what I've learned so far regarding the underpainting, base layer, values and layering among other things. But I'm glad I got a chance to really test them to see what was possible. And now on to the next one that ties right in with the next lesson on using acrylics as watercolors, which will be a piece I'm doing as a gift for someone special. :)