Kate Nevius Art - Blog

First Pet Portrait Done

Kate — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:53:20 +0000

Thanks to my sister-in-law and her recruitment efforts, I completed my first pet portrait for a customer this past weekend! The customer was kind enough to send me a variety of photographs of her pooch to choose from. I selected this one because I just thought it was so unusual. The pose was very dramatic and fun, and not a typical “portrait-type” pose. I love the tongue!

I took some artistic liberties and changed a few things, but for the most part everything is the same.

With this pet portrait done I am now free so make your order today!

Pet Portraits for Sale

Kate — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:16:09 +0000

One great thing about being an artist is if you don’t know what to get someone for Christmas, you can always paint them something. And chances are, they most likely will not get that same gift from someone else. When my brother and sister-in-law got engaged I painted one of my signature paintings for them of a rose which now hangs in their downstairs living room. Luckily for me, they just began renovating their upstairs so I had an excuse to give them another painting. I decided to do something different this time around by painting a portrait of their pet Westie, Elsie.

The challenging thing about this painting was that Elsie is an all white dog. As I’ve mentioned before, the trick to painting white is to see the color in the white. Of course there are shadows that create blue and purple hues, and light that gives off gold and yellow tints. In some cases I made the colors more dramatic than they actually were, but to the general eye Elsie still comes off as a white Westie. This dog painting sparked a new business venture for me; pet portraits. My sister-in-law was kind enough to get me my first customer which I’m really excited about. So if anyone out there is interested in having a painting done of their pet let me know!

Creation Station

Kate — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:48:31 +0000

My wonderful husband just bought me a creation station.

I’ve wanted one for a very long time. Prior to the creation station, it was sometimes difficult to get motivated to paint. It was always such a pain to have to get out all of my paint, brushes, paper, and water and even more of a pain to clean-up after. Now with my new creation station I can leave my paint and projects out. I think I’m going to be more likely to sit down and paint when I have an extra 20 or 30 minutes of free time. Last year my husband hung a clothesline for me to hang my paintings on to dry (as you can see from the picture). Let the creating begin!

Happy Holidays

Kate — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 15:51:58 +0000

I got Lilia’s storybook, “Penguina’s Bedtime Story,” put together for her in time for Christmas; just like I promised her mommy. I used an online program, blurb.com. First you start off by selecting the size of the book. I chose the largest landscape size they had available. I went all out and got the hardcover with the dust jacket too!

Then you download their program and put together the book just like you want it to look and they print it for you. I think it came out well.

Lilia was mainly interested in eating the pages when she first saw it, but in a few years I think she’ll come to appreciate the story and illustrations as well.

Happy Holidays to one and all!

“How I Know My Mommy Loves Me”

Kate — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:59:01 +0000

I just want my Nana and LouAnne to know that I did not forget out the book project I promised them. I’m working on a book called “How I Know My Mommy Loves Me” for LouAnne’s granddaughter. Unfortunately I haven’t had that much time to work on it these past few months. But everyone will be happy to know that my New Year’s resolution is to spend more time on my art. I think there are a lot of things kids never really appreciate about their parents until they’re older. For example, when I was sick my mom used to sit with me for hours and read to me. I never fully appreciated this sign of affection until a few years ago. I used to nanny for a little girl who loved being read to, but after an hour my throat would be sore and by the time I went home at night I would be completely hoarse. I don’t know how my mom did it! I guess it was just because she loved me.

My Holiday Project

Kate — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:52:44 +0000

I am back from the dead! With starting my new job and studying for my LCSW exam I have unfortunately had very little time for my art and blogging. But now that things are finally starting to settle down I am excited to get started once again. For my first project back I decided to make a Christmas tree skirt. After Christmas last year, Jo Ann’s had a huge sale on their holiday fabric so my husband picked this pattern up for me.

It has been sitting in the bottom of a drawer for almost a year. But after setting up our Christmas tree a couple of days ago I finally decided it was time to whip it out and get to work. First I needed to buy some lining. Instead of going with a plain, solid, color I had this epiphany to buy more penguin fabric and make the tree skirt reversible.

After watching a few online videos on “how to make a tree skirt” I decided to also pick up some tassels to go around the outside. It was kind of expensive, but I just couldn’t resist.

My husband decided to go with the red side of the skirt first. Maybe next week we’ll try out the green side.

Things Out of Order

Kate — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:41:57 +0000

I never work on any of my projects in order but I may be taking this project to a whole new level of chaos. I created this illustration, but I’m not entirely sure where it goes in the book. In all honesty I haven’t even finished writing the story yet. I just got so excited about doing the pictures! But no matter how the story unfolds, I don’t think I will have trouble finding a place for this one. After all, what book couldn’t use a picture of a mama bear hugging her cub?!

I’m also really excited because someone other than my dad (not that I don’t LOVE hearing from you dad) made comments on my blog. I appreciate the support and feedback, thanks!

My New Book

Kate — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:02:09 +0000

After seeing Lilia’s storybook, my grandmother’s sister requested I write and illustrate a personalized children’s book for her new grandchild. Since it was her daughter who had the baby, and she had a little girl, I personalized the book by creating a story describing a mother’s relationship with her daughter. I decided to use bears as the featured characters in this book because I feel like it’s the first stuffed animal all babies have. Thus it felt appropriate to have one of her first books be about bears. The title of the book is “How I Know My Mommy Loves Me.” It is about all the different ways a mother shows her child how she loves her even if she doesn’t say it. This story is based on the things my mom used to do for me when I was growing up to show me that she loved me. This is the first illustration I created. When I was sick my mom used to draw me a hot bubble bath.

I’m trying something new with these illustrations by not creating a background for any of them. It’s totally against the “art rules” I learned in high school, but as my teacher used to always say “You have to know the rules before you can break them.” So I guess it maybe okay then.

Done!

Kate — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:05:22 +0000

This is a new addition to the book. I decided to incorporate it into the story to break the text up between two pages and make it more age appropriate for young children. The scene in this illustration also takes place in the ice cream parlor. There are three other illustration of the inside of the ice cream parlor in the book that all depict a similar scene from behind the counter. I thought it was important to make this scene a little bit different so the reader didn’t feel like he/she was looking at the same illustration four times in the row. So in this illustration I created a scene in front of the counter instead.

So I have finally done it; I have finished Penguina’s Bedtime Story!

Taking Your Time and Doing It Well

Kate — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:20:14 +0000

Unlike the illustration in my last post, this illustration is completely different than its original. The first illustration was basically a portrait of the character Pengels.

I decided to create something new because I didn’t feel like the illustration captured enough of what was taking place. There are three “key ideas” in the text for this illustration. First, the group of penguins leave Patsy behind at the ice cream shop. Second, Patsy gets upset and begins to cry. And finally three, Pengels enters the ice cream store. In this new illustration, I was able to capture all three as opposed to the original which only portrayed one of these.

Sometimes when you’ve been working on a project for a really long time, such as this book which has been a work in progress for about seven years, you can start to feel frustrated, tired, and bored leading you to create half-fast pieces. I think these feelings were very prevalent when I did the first round of illustrations. The second time around I really tried to be patient with myself. If I didn’t feel like something was going right I stopped for a while. I took my time and tried out different ideas until I found the one that I thought was the best rather than sticking with a bad idea in an attempt to finish quickly. I had about three different drafts of this illustration before I settled on this final composition. If a project is really important to you, it’s worth taking your time and doing it well.