Northwords Literary Festival Artwork

Northwords Literary Festival Website

Well since my pipes are frozen and I tried to boil snow for my watercolour painting but it was too gritty, I thought  I'd do a little blog update. For the NorthWords Literary Festival artwork I created 3 roughs and the Festival committee voted on their favourite concept. The "Tree" rough won with the "Flying Canoe" rough a close second.  It was fun getting interesting feedback, all positive from the group.

I've got the final artwork all drawn up on some lovely 300pd. Saunders Watercolour paper. Here's a few shots of my desk as I'm playing with colour to get the right mixes for the golden sky I wish to create.

Here is the light pencil drawing for the final artwork. I hope my pipes unfreeze soon so I can get started!

My New Website is Up and Running!

www.catherineluce.com



I've got my new Illustration and Fine Art website up and running!




This is the final version of one of my latest. I've decided to call it " Moonlight Reverie", reverie meaning "a dreamy state of mind or fanciful musing" or in music "an instrumental composition of a vague and dreamy character". Seems fitting as the image came to me as I was playing "Reverie" and other works by Claude Debussy on a mesmerizing new piano while watching the snow fall. 

Excited to Be Part of a Fundraiser for Type One Diabetes

My daughter Danika was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes 10 years ago at age 7. It's a very stressful condition for anyone to have but to have to teach a small child how to give herself multiple insulin shots daily, check her blood sugar 4 to 5 times a day and watch out for very dangerous low or high bloods sugars is quite overwhelming.

When I heard that Julie Colvin, another mother of a Type One child wrote a book "A Cure for Emma" and was doing a book signing in Huntsville with all the profits of her book going to research I was eager to join in. I've been following the research of Dr. Denise Faustman over the years with great interest. She has cured Type One Diabetes in mice and is now in the second stage of human trials but needs funds in order to proceed. Anyone who follows research knows it's always exciting to hear of human trials beyond the mice stage
All the profits of my "Bookcase" Fine Art Print and Julie Colvin's book "A Cure for Emma" will go to this research.

.For more info on the research click the link
.More info on Julie Colvin's fundraising efforts

A close image of The Bookcase Artwork and a link for online purchasing
http://www.etsy.com/listing/84699301/the-bookcase-fundraiser-for-type-one?ref=v1_other_2

Autumn Inspiration

After a flurry of activities in the summer up here it's always time to get to some serious artwork in the fall. It seems this is when I am most inspired as the colours can be breathtaking and there is a feeling in the air, hard to describe, melancholy perhaps. Last week we had a 26 degree day and my daughter had the afternoon off so instead of actually working we kayaked to a nearby island, explored and once again some ideas started to mix around in my brain. Our  kayak started to float away while I was thinking however and I had to jump in the chilly Autumn waters to rescue it. My "happy" places are in the forest and on the water so I was glad to take advantage of the day. The haunting, lonely call of a couple of loons nearby reminded us that soon they will leave the north and days like this will just be a memory until next year.

I.F. Mesmerising

Well, this one isn't quite finished but when I saw the word for Illustraiton Friday was mesmerizing I had to get it up since low and behold I was going to call this "Mesmerized". I recently bought a new beautiful piano and not having played for years, it seemed magical and completely "mesmerizing". It brought back a neglected passion, especially for classical music which is timeless and challenging. The music of Dubussy especially and the long winter months in Muskoka madly, obsessively pounding away at the keys inspired this illustration.
It needs some more tonal contrast I feel and the photo doesn't show the detail well so I'll get the finished piece up soon.

Barn Owls and Ravens in Flight - Study

Studies of Barn Owls and Ravens in flight, once again from freeze framing videos, great way to study flight movement. Enjoyed drawing the owls as I think they look to me like flying alien fish creatures. A new piece I'll be working on requires some owls and ravens.

Back to the Drawing Board-Lynx Studies and Late Night Doodles

After a rather rotten winter of health issues, things are looking up and I am motivated to get some new artwork done. There are many visual stories that need to come out! One has some animal characters so I wanted to sharpen up the old drawing skills that tend to get rusty when you're not drawing all the time. These sketches were done while watching a video of a lynx chasing a hare(poor little guy). It was difficult to see the underlying structure of the cat as it has so much padding, the action shots however helped more.  Watching the lynx's movements on the video made me really appreciate the power of these amazing creatures. Little house cats they are not!(sorry but the hare got away the first time but not the next, but on a positive note there where lynx kittens to be fed)
The last image are doodles from my sketch book when sleep would not arrive, I rather like the character on the bottom and will develop him further.