Anne Leuck Feldhaus Adventures & Art

Sunday...

Another peek in to my sketchbook...

Yesterday...

Forgive my lame mobile upload...just wanted to share yesterday's drawing. Inspired by taxes, indirectly...I snapped this photo in the west loop on the way to my accountant's office. Of course I never draw or paint anything exactly as I see it, it's always just my impression. So long February 2012, you did not disappoint.

Illustration Friday Submission: SUSPENCE

My Illustration Friday submission for the word SUSPENSE...turns out I had documented a little in my sketchbook this morning.

my dreaming mind...

I had some strange dreams last night...this drawing is a bit of an embellishment. Here's what it would look like as a 'day dream':

Thankful in the Cascades...

I took a long overdue trip out to my brother's for Thanksgiving, we went up to his cabin in the Cascade Mountains, it was heaven...every sight, breathtaking. I couldn't hike much outside as my ankle is still compromised a bit, but played cards (Euchre!), had my first Wii experience (ankle friendly) and enjoyed good food (as documented above), wine and great company.

Watch your step!

"Beautiful Fall Day" took on a whole new meaning once I stepped in that hole. Friday, Met Cathi "Corn" Bouzide at Lill Street to pick up my trucks from her studio. She suggested we walk a few of them over to our pal Stephie's Angelfood Bakery, as she had a display of several pieces from the Women in Grains Show in her front window. (By the way, Angelfood had just been named one of the 'Top 5 Bakeries in Chicago' by Steve Dolinsky, so well deserved and so proud of my friend!).
Cathi and Stephie outside looking in...took a lot of miming through the window to get the rigs situated! Once we were done, I packed up my bubble wrap and headed back to my truck...la de dah...walkin' along, step off the curb and I'm down! What? (A huge hole hidden under a pile of beautiful fall leaves)...and it hurts! My ankle is huge, how can it get that big that fast? Stephie came running over with 2 bags of ice. I know she did not have time for this little emergency but she did what any good friend would do, hopped in the truck and drove me up to Peterson Urgent Care where we laughed and giggled between my teary outbreaks. I was relieved to find that my ankle was not broken but I did need crutches, and that proved to be very challenging for me.I fell a few times, am still crawling upstairs to bed each night but the swelling is way down and I can put some weight on my toes, now. Have never had to ask for so much help, I'm not good at it and poor Rich is trying to be patient, I always forget that he can't read my mind. Not to mention, that he's had to take care of two patients if you count Gracie:

Now just have to get through my Roscoe Village Dog & Art Lovers event on Friday. I won't be able to the normal prep, gallery re-hang etc, so this will be a good lesson for me to see how a show goes without working in over-drive, as is my reguar m.o. So grateful that I'll have Amanda to help me out and Rich. This ordeal has reminded me how lucky I am to have such a supportive husband and friends and mobility!

A peek at my sketchbook...

So much to share and so little time to blog. In the mean time, here's a little peek at my sketchbook from earlier this month...drew this in Minneapolis over the course of an afternoon at the Uptown Art Fair. Note the bottom of the page 'I got lost last night'....(no, I do not have a gps and I have the most basic of old fashioned cell phones). I like good old fashioned maps, but did I have one? Of course not ; ) I was trying to find my way back to my friend's house in St. Paul, exhausted from the heat, tired, starving and with a killer headache. I couldn't get ahold of my friend or Rich (back in Chicago), to check on-line. Did what we all had to do in the old days, stopped at a gas station and some lovely residents of St. Paul were happy to point me in the right direction after declaring 'you are WAY far from where you want to be'...always grateful for the kindness of strangers.  

Wells Street Wrap Up Part II

If you've ever chatted with me at a show, chances are I told you all about my dogs and their influence on my art. So I was a little nervous about retaining my composure, since this was my first art fair since losing Izzy, and I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. As luck would have it, the Greyhounds Only rescue group were set up across from my booth at the Wells Street Show. They created a beautiful diversion, and also inspired me all weekend long. I did several drawings of them and in the midst of sharing with people about Izzy, did my first 'patron saint of' / post-pumpkin sketches.  

Studies for new paintings...

Showing my age...

When I'm super busy one of the first things I neglect along with exercise is my daily sketchbook...This page is a reflection of how I account for every missed day. I should have done this drawing on November 19th but in fact I did it last night, November 28th. If only I could squeeze all those days of not working out into one session.

So Alice, Izzy, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton all made it onto the paper in one way or another as I sketched while watching Annie Hall last night...many years since I've seen this movie and funny to hear Woody Allen refer to himself as being 40 - I was 10 when this was made. Now I'm older than he was back then! Can I count the tennis racquet as exercise?

Fear...

Fear is what has motivated me most of my life....I just realized the other day that I have finally made a shift in my thinking when I saw these words:

Fear Regret, Not Failure.

It was actually the fear of not facing fear and making a change that pushed me to take this new risk/opportunity/challenge and that translates to fear of regret. Life had gotten a little too predictable. I want to connect with and be more a part of the community bringing my love of art and people and pet advocacy all together. I've worked with many different rescue groups over the years but really at arms length, donating artwork for fundraisers and designing posters & t-shirts for events but not being present and interacting directly at the events. I want to use this space to make art and to publicly connect and help support these groups - hosting adoption events, etc. as well as share my art process and possibly even teach kids to do their own pet portraits. 

Sketchbook 2.15.09

 

x's...o's...hearts.

Yesterday's sketchbook page...you'll notice I missed Tuesday. Images for some sweet valentine-y paintings I might make. Created in my Cachet Classic Graph Sketch Book with a black Uni-ball Vision Pen.

Sketchbook Study for Damen...

 

A recent peek at my sketch book.I incorporated studies of an adorable rescue named Damen for a Pet Portrait Order. (digitally enhanced in shades of gray)

Canned

Illustration Friday Word:  CANNED

Have not particpated in IF for weeks..months! I drew this in my sketchbook, scanned and added some digital baby blue. Another fun way to productively procrastinate!

Art Re-Treat

Back from an amazing art retreat weekend in rural Wisconsin with Rachel and Erica ..and remotely our dear friend Lois Keller. 

Rachel started this amazing new series of paintings and created several lovely water colors...

Erica pulled this one out of her hat...this large piece consists of 10 separate panels:

Lois shipped us a box of treasures, included for each of us was a lovely drawing (this is the one she sent for me) with sentiments and her wishes for each of us and our creative lives for 2008.

And these are some of my pieces - I did paintings on cardboard:

These 3 women have impacted my life and art in so many ways, we have a very magical connection that has only strengthened over the last 7+ years. I'd love to share more as so many wonderful things transpired...but I'll just have to leave you with these snippets since I'm scrambling to get myself and things together before I leave Wednesday for my trip up to Minneapolis for the Uptown Art Fair. Not an easy thing since I've had a non-stop whirl wind of fun, adventure and travel over the last few weeks. I feel so lucky to be taking all these trips and for the chance to reconnect with so many wonderful friends and family.

A Busy Weekend...

On Saturday I hung my show in Fluorish's Fine Art Gallery with the help of my trusty assistant Kate...

it's a beautiful space with great lighting and very high ceilings and the nicest staff you'll ever meet. My opening will be on March 15th and will be on all day event from Noon-7pm...a family day with lots of activities.

On Sunday Rich & I ventured to Merrillville, Indiana to purchase an amplifier...it was a business trip for both of us as I took advantage of being the passenger and sketching the journey to and from Chicago. It's landmarks and unique signs that make the paintings fun and familiar, not so many left around any more. One of my favorite local land marks was the  Magikist Lips sign....I remember as a kid driving through Chicago visiting from Wisconsin, how cool my brother and I thought that sign was. Sadly the last Magikist sign came down in early 2000. It was the logo for a carpet cleaning company...which I just learned on wikipedia, I would have thought it was for something more fun, like those goofy wax lip candies we used to buy at the  dime store.

I'm starting to dream up other ideas for these road trip paintings. I'd like to make a deal with the tourism bureaus in every state and do a cross country road trip, sketching my impressions into paintings that they could use for marketing their state....we could rent an rv so and bring the dogs with us, I hate leaving them behind when we travel. Sounds like big fun to me, I love the open road!  Here are Sundays sketches, kind of murky...I forgot to bring a good sharpie and had to use an old stubby one found in the bottom of my purse:

The negative for the day was this horrible, mostly unmarked, detour for I-65 going south...this added much time and many miles to our little excursion. You know something is wrong when you stop at a toll booth to ask for directions and the attendant hands you a flyer as though she was expecting you.

Multiple

Illustration Friday Word: Multiple.

There are multiple ways you can cure a hangover. What magical treatment works for you?

Illustration Friday - CHOOSE

Illustration Friday Word of the Week: CHOOSE

Back in November we went mattress shopping for a King Size Bed...it was not as hard to CHOOSE as we thought it would be. It was a very Goldilocks-like experience. We used Yelp.com to find the the stores with the best deals, and we did!

We had been wanting a king bed since adopting Alice back in 2004 so there was room for everyone....of course now that we have it: Izzy refuses to join us...she is so stubborn in her old age!

PS...This image is a scanned page from my sketchbook that I inverted with Photoshop.

Live from my sketchbook...

I'm trying to better utilize the hundreds of images in my sketchbooks,
this was a randomly selected page. I think the cat in the sketch
looks more interesting, kind of human...but I'm happy with the
painting too. Think I can challenge myself to do one of these a
week? It's always fun to go back and visit all those pages and
see what was going through my head at the time...

Open...

Illustration Friday Word = OPEN
On this day recorded in my sketchbook, I OPENed
myself up to try new things...
and by posting it here, I leave myself open for possible
ridicule...go ahead laugh, or send me your inquiries!

17 Years Ago Today....

Seventeen years ago today, I moved to Chicago. 1990, age 23, no job, knew 2 people, none close friends, with the exception of an x-boyfriend but that didn't count except that he did introduce me to Rich...so I guess that does count! My plan was to stay 1-2 years and then move out to the west coast. I was so scared but also very excited to finally be in a BIG city. I was so excited to live only blocks from Lake Michigan (never mind that I was too naive to know how edgy my neighborhood was back then) Rogers Park area Kenmore & Granville. I was filled with a feeling of adventure not knowing what great things...and not so great things, awaited. My 10 day stint at an art foundry (I thought this was going to be my dream job)...left me frustrated and sad, the man I worked for told me "you are never going to make it in Chicago". So I"m a little emotional...so what, I'M STILL HERE. I think it just added to my resolve to find my own way. Then I became miss interviewee and corporate temp...I had to buy a suit (I didn't even own a skirt) and start wearing panty hose and heels - killer for a gal fresh out of art school. I found a job by December as a convention and meeting planning assistant. I worked there for 6 years. None that I regret in retrospect as it later proved to be invaluable to running my own business. Which I guess I better get back to...Happy Anniversary to me!

New Paintings in Progress...

Last week I started several new paintings on some very nice wood cabinet doors...this one came from my sketchbook. When the power went out, I lost my last minute 'super anne' power painting time which I needed to finish pieces for the Bucktown Art Fest...hopefully I'll have them completed for the Lakeview East Art Fair on Sept. 8-9th. Note to self, procrastination painting not always a good idea.

08.18.07

Have not painted in quite some time, but I continue to fill my sketch book on a somewhat daily basis. My goal is one page per day but as you can see here, the 17th & 18th ended up on one page and at times if life is really crazy I'll have up to a week of dates on one page but alas every day accounted for. So I'll try to share more sketchbook during my 'dry spells' = no wet paint.

I have also been sketching a lot digitally on my Cintiq doing prep work for pet portraits, design work for licensing and (all day today) working on illustrations for the Paws LA Pet ARt 9 invitation and a poster for Chicago Animal Care & Control's Fall Adoption Event.

Hopefully I'll be ready to paint tomorrow as I have several commissions to start - that's also about the time new things develop down in my studio. Yesterday I primed a whole new slew of wood cabinet doors so I am excited to slather some GOLDEN acrylics onto them as well. It's hard to remember that I need incubation time before I actually produce, because when I do produce it's usually a lot at one time. Instead I tend to just beat myself up for not painting often enough.

Emergency!

Illustration Friday
Theme = EMERGENCY
Today I digitally colored this drawing from my sketchbook created on August 15, 2001-I guess it's fitting that it's August 15th today as well. There was a fire in our neighborhood, a little girl went racing down our street on her bike yelling "Fire Fire Everywhere - Armitage & Milwaukee!" of course we had to go check it out,we met lots of other interesting late night spectators...lots of dogs too. There was not 'fire, fire everywhere' - just one building, but fairly large and the intersection of Western, Milwaukee and Armitage was blocked off so it was a big deal.