I finally have a few select prints done and ready for purchase, as well as some small 8″ x 10″ original pieces listed in me Etsy shop here Angela DeRiso Art
I’m pushing out small originals at a steady rate, and quality prints are being made one by one. Here’s is the latest selection of available items.
Here is a closer look at “The Sun & The Dragon” in detail (photo of the original piece).
Here are the latest 8″ x 10″ original pieces for sale at $45 each.
“Axlotl Dream”
An axoltl swimming through a dreamworld as two water spirits watch over its journey. This amphibian is commonly kept as a pet, and is unique not only for its strange appearance but its incredible regenerative abilities.
This piece depicts several turtle species swimming toward the sanctuary of a goddess who oversees their protection. Species in this piece are Red Eared Slider, Map, Chicken, Snapping, Three Striped Mud, Wood, Softshell, and Blanding’s.
The portfolio page has been updated with several new wildlife pieces, so go check it out if you like. The new entries include birds, turtles, and a few big cats.
In the meantime, I have completed some fantasy pieces recently, which I still do on occasion. These are mostly done in graphite pencil, since I try to save my color pencils for the wildlife work.
The idea of illustrating the alien creatures/characters from Neal Asher‘s novels had me busy. I went ahead and smashed out the ferocious ‘Hooder’. Technically, they are bio-mechanical war machines made by an ancient alien race. Very millipede-like, but the hood, or front end, is absolutely brutal. It cuts, slices, and damn-near dissects its prey alive when eating. I doubt if I added enough ‘manipulators’ under that hood, since the descriptions in certain scenes make it seem like they are numerous.
The Hooder
After reading Dark Intelligence and War Factory, I had to do a sketch of Riss, the war drone. She accompanies one of the main characters on his journey. She is feisty, and designed to resemble a certain alien parasite(that also just so happens to resemble a Terran snake species.).
Riss
This was done after viewing many a beautiful stempunk clothing designs, and goggles. I like the idea of a lone desert drifter female with weird lizard companions. I used a photo of a Mexican Alligator Lizard as reference for the little buddy on her shoulder. A few photos were referenced for pieces of clothing as well. I do love the corsets. Need to try more steampunk themed artwork.
SteamPunk Lizard Wench
This one I worked on for a while, especially when trying to get the face right. The idea behind it was of a deity associated with crows/ravens. Decided to make her blonde instead of dark haired as would be expected. Ram horns were used as reference for texture, and light/shadows. A lot of shading went into the crows feathers/body. The background winding pattern is partly my attempt to fully fill the page, and add something to set the main subjects against instead of just blank space.
Rabble 11″ x 14″Face Close-UpCrows Close-Up
That’s it for the time being, as I toil away at yet more work to be done.
I recently had several of my pieces put on display at a local library in my area. The beginning of July was when I dropped them off to be hung, and the exhibit ends at the end of August. I’m putting more effort into having my work displayed locally when I can. I’ve frequented this library alot, since I’m an avid reader of science fiction, and other related things.
I’ve also maintained my work on other pieces of native wildlife in my Florida neighborhood. If you keep up with my instagram account, you’ll have seen these already. I will be adding them to the portfolio page of this site.
Blue Jay’s Mangoes 11″ x 14″
Growing up in the Florida Keys, I’d never seen them before. I was fascinated with them when I first moved to the Tampa Bay area. Like many songbirds, they are nearly acrobatic in flight, and happily raid bird feeders. They are bold enough to drive away other birds from food. They also are the first to call out a perched bird of prey, often mobbing the individual until they leave. They carry a wide array of calls, even adding some mimicry to the vocabulary. They can go from loud piercing metallic calls to low peeping chatter.
I purposely kept this minimalist, to remain focused on my subject and the flora I wanted to include. The brightness of a Blue Jay’s plumage is often overlooked, and I wanted to highlight that. Along with the tropical nature of Florida, I decided to at the foliage and fruit of the mango tree.
Florida Softshell Turtle 11″ x 14″
Instead of the hard shell most turtles possess, the softshell has a thick leathery covering upon its back. This reptile also has smooth skin on its head and extremities. Almost doesn’t look like a turtle. I’ve spotted (and rescued off the road) some of these several times. In freshwater ponds, they tend to stay hidden in the murk until they smell or see something worthy of investigation. It’s hard for me not to think them wise when I see them raise just their eyes above water to look my way. They watch and wait. Suppose they have to, since they are fair game for gators and people who like to cook and eat them.
I tried to add a brightness with my choice of colors for this piece, especially in the background. Most photos and the overall environment of these turtles tends to be very drab in color, and would wash out some of the mood and detail I wanted to keep.
Turtle Poker 14″ x 17″
Based on a photo of several wild freshwater turtles I’d taken a few years back. All of these turtles are Red Eared Sliders, with the turtle on the upper left being an old male who’s colors have faded with age. I had been cheating in a way, in order to get these photos. I was feeding them so I could get closer shots of them, and see the different patterns/stripes on each of their heads. Most of their shells were covered with algae. I couldn’t help but notice after looking at the photos I’d gotten, that they all seemed at one point to just sit and stare at each other between the time I threw more food. As if assessing which of them was more prepared to fight for the next morsels. Thus, the title “Turtle Poker” came about.
As with the above piece, I brightened some colors in the environment, and added upon that by adding lily pads.
Green Seaturtles 9″ x 12″
A simple piece on tan pastel paper. No background, but the light, mid-tones, and shadows came out beautifully on this color of paper.
Hawksbill At Surface 9″ x 12″
Based on a photo reference found online. Great for practice with reflective water surfaces, and I was happy with the final product.
So much to do, but seems like there’s not enough time and energy to do it all. Be back soon.
Last month, I attended the 3rd Friday event after a friend hooked me into it. I took my canvas acrylic paintings that I’d done some time back last year, and set up a single table, no tent or anything fancy. I went into it expecting the same outcome of my past experiences of nothing selling. The evening turned out to be more positive than I thought.
My table at the start of the event.Showing the largest piece I had for sale.The table after several sales.
I was completely unprepared to display my stuff, but somehow managed anyway. Most of my 8″ x 10″ canvases started to sell about an hour or two into the night. I only have 2-3 left from that night. My larger canvases were a 10″ x 20″, a 22″ x 28″, and two 16″ x 20″s. The 10″ x 20″ sold that night, and one of the 16″ x 20″s sold a few days later through a person I met during the event.
After the event, I started thinking more about how this type of artwork sold so easily, and that I should do more of it for the next event. I am still conflicted as to having two different mediums and styles of art, and how to make that work. I don’t plan on stopping the color pencil work that I do, but rather focusing on where it would sell and what kinds of products (such as prints, bookmarks, coasters, etc.) would help facilitate sales. I do plan to have card sets made of several of my pieces, as both useful and collectible items.
I am currently at work painting more canvases, this time smaller sizes. I’m making not just turtles, but other sea life and tropical based designs. Here are just a few that I’ve completed.
4″ x 4″ canvases
The large 22″ x 28″ seaturtle canvas I had for sale was donated to a good cause with the great people over at Dobermann Rescue of Lake Placid. It will be raffled off to support the rescue of many great Dobies.
Other than painting like crazy, getting new cards made, and writing down ideas, I’m looking forward to next 3rd Friday here in Safety Harbor!
This website is also due for an update as well, so look out for that!
I’d like to share a few commissions I’ve done in the past and recent, as well as some background on them.
When I first started doing professional art commissions in 2008, most of the jobs came through online contacts. Then, as word of mouth traveled, I began getting a few local jobs here and there.
This was one of the first. I received this request from an online parrot forum. The owner of “Pickles” wanted a portrait of her quaker parrot, and she supplied an image of the bird perched among some branches. I took artistic license with the rest of the colors.
These two pieces feature a family’s horses and a very old barn on their property. One horse got his own portrait. I actually went out to the family’s home and visited the property and horses to get good photos to work from. The horses were very beautiful and charming in person. These pieces were given as Christmas gifts that year. (2008 I believe.)
Another pet bird portrait requested from an online forum member. This client wanted day lilies and hibiscus flowers in the background, as well as the bird’s hatch date. 9″ x 12″ on bristol board, 2009.
This commission was one of my more unusual requests. An old friend from high school wanted a piece with a character from a Japanese anime series called “Tenchi Muyo”, that we both used to watch. He asked for the character to be in a certain pose and appear more realistic. I added the suggested maple tree. 5″ x 6″ on bristol board, 2014.
These two pieces were done for a client wanting Christmas gifts for his children, who are fond of these two bird species. Both were done on 9″ x 12″ colored pastel paper, 2014.
This piece was done for a neighbor who had a frame and requested something to fit just right. He wanted a gray fox in the woods, so that’s what I gave him. 15″ x 16″ on bristol board, 2012.
Next post will have my photos of the CRAFT ART Festival in St. Pete, Florida! Stay tuned!
After having taken a break from colored pencil illustrations (or having a block that lasted months), I’m getting back into the swing of being artistic.
Taking plenty of photos of local wildlife and places has helped me build a set of ideas to work from.
Starting a piece on 14″ x 17″ bristol board, and the subject is pelicans. I managed to get some great shots of them while they were waiting below a local pier waiting for scraps from fishermen.
Here’s the start of it, just pencil outlines of the birds so far.
If you’ve spent any significant time working in color pencil, you will eventually find blending tools such as the Colorless Blender pencil (made by Prismacolor) is invaluable. For smoothing out small details and lessening some of the grainy texture of the color pencils, the colorless blender works wonders and should be bought at least two at a time.
Another unrelated tip: Always have these colors in stock for the basics of laying down light and shadows. White, Indigo Blue, and Black. Black Cherry is also another good color of laying down shadow if you don’t have black on hand, or you want to try something a little different.
With this most recent piece, I used a piece of blue-grey pastel paper and drew my subject in very light HB lead. I start with shading in the beak and legs. I used one of my own photos as reference.
I then start shading in some of the basic light and dark colors in the bird (White Ibis.) I used mostly 50% Warm Gray for the dark areas, with only a little Indigo Blue around the edges.
Started blending the beak and legs. Notice how much smoother the color looks compared to some of the other colored areas in the artwork.
< ——-The image to the left was taken before blending.
Once I was finished smoothing most graininess of the white, and some of the mid tones, this was the finished product. The grass was done without any blending.
Here are a few of my newest pieces done in graphite.
“Chimera” – More of a creature design thing. A combination of a tiger, dog, and a reptile. I love weird combinations of animals blended into one.
“SongBird” – Tried something a little new here, using some different facial expressions. This piece portrays the free spirited nature of birds who sing their song so passionately. 9″ x 12″ Graphite on pastel paper.
“Birds of a Feather” – Similar concept to the piece shown above, though this is a darker themed one. I decided to incorporate a bird or birds into the hair/feathers in this piece. The crow represents a very intelligent, cunning bird, and so is the familiar of an equally cunning bird spirit. 9″ x 12″ Graphite on bristol board.
