TabascoCat Art is moving to a new home in 2 days!

I wanted to let all of my followers know that the TabascoCat Art blog will be moving to it’s new home on my new website MarqueTodd.com in 2 days (Web Nov 20).  At that point all traffic from TabascoCat Art will be redirected.  For those of you signed up to follow me by email you will continue to get notifications of new posts from MarqueTodd.com.  For those of you that are following me via WordPress you will need to go to MarqueTodd.com and sign up to follow my blog via email.

I am very excited to make the switch.  The new website will feature my paintings and drawings and well as offer fine art prints of my work for sale.  If you follow my blog I will be busily posting so that you will be updated on works in progress, new paintings and prints for sale as well as continuing the content variety I have offered on TabascoCat Art.

Since many of my older posts are so popular the entire archive for TabascoCat Art will be moved to the new site.

Thanks to everyone for following me and I hope to see you at MarqueTodd.com!!

New website and blog coming soon!!

I am sure some of you have noticed that I have not posted for awhile.  I have sorely missed posting and interacting with my followers but there was a really good reason for it.  In the next week or so I am rolling out a brand spanking new website and blog for my art!  Note: visitors to this blog will be redirected automatically to my new blog site in the coming days, so you won’t miss a single new post!

The new site will not only host my blog, but you will be able to buy fine art prints and originals of my work – how exciting is that?!  I also now have a Facebook business page “Animal Art by Marque Todd” that you will want to be sure and “like” since I plan to offer some of my new prints at an introductory price to promote the grand unveiling of my new site.

And just so you know that I am still working hard on new paintings….here is a sneak peek at part of a design for a work in progress…

A Fox As a Keeper of Keys in Egg Tempera

I am slowly resolving the direction I would like to take my art and this design represents the next step for me.  My goal is to depict animals as spiritual as well as earthly creatures and to create allegories that invite viewers to see animals differently and through that experience, to see themselves differently as well.

“Keys to the Kingdom” egg tempera on true gesso panel, 8×10 by Marque Todd

 

Below are photos showing the progress of the painting at the end of each day.

Day 1 – Laying in a graded sky

 

Day 2 – Adding stone texture to the columns

Day 3 – Working on detail of columns

Day 4 – Creating warm and cool columns with glazes and knocking back with scumbles

Day 5 – Laying in basic values/colors of the fox

Day 6 – More layers including glazes and scumbles on the fox

Day 7 – More work on the fox with many new layers added

Day 8 – More adjustments to fox and added the basics of the final elements, the keys. End of Day 9 is final work shown above

I had the privilege of taking two back to back workshops with the very accomplished egg tempera (ET) painter, Koo Schadler.

I have always wanted to learn the ancient method of ET and Koo’s workshops were fantastic!  She is a fabulous teacher and I would highly recommend her workshops to anyone interested in ET (from basic to more advanced).  We also learned how to make true gesso panels from scratch and Koo generously taught us a lot about old master design principles as well.

Miniature Cheetah Painting in Oil

Not sure why but I love miniature paintings so much, but I do and decided to create my own miniature in an early Renaissance style.

Here is the completed piece and if you scroll down you can see the series of steps that it took to create it along the way – enjoy!

“Portrait of a Cheetah from the French Court” by Marque Todd (oil on panel, 7×5 inches)

 

“Portrait of a Cheetah from the French Court” by Marque Todd (oil on panel, 7×5 inches)

 

A couple of things worth noting – this is a somewhat unusual oil painting by today’s standards because I did not use any opaque paint, all the color is achieved by building up thin layers of glaze over the silverpoint drawing.

Also, if you look at the earlier versions, the cat has a pretty beady eye and that was really bugging me.  So I enlarged the dark area some and added the highlight which I think overall softened eye and the expression on the cat’s face.  It’s amazing how such a small change can change the overall feel dramatically!

From Silverpoint to Oil Painting: Illuminated Deer

I just recently finished this piece.  I am very happy with how it turned out!

“Illuminated Deer” 10″x8″ silverpoint and oil on true gesso panel by Marque Todd 2013

Detail of “Illuminated Deer” 10″x8″ silverpoint and oil on true gesso panel by Marque Todd 2013

This was created by putting down a detailed underdrawing in silverpoint and then slowly building up thin layers of transparent oil (glazing) over the top.  There is no opaque underpainting.  It’s hard to capture in a photograph, but there is also metallic gold on the element with the quatrefoil.

I thought it would be fun to share how the piece evolved through these steps all in one place.

This is the original pen & ink sketch from my sketchbook:

And here is the finished silverpoint underdrawing before painting:

It was interesting to watch this piece develop over time.  Also, I want to acknowledge my incredible mentor/instructor Vicki Walsh.  She got me started on silverpoint and has taught me everything I know about glazing with oils.