Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

Working on beige watercolor paper allows for color continuity throughout this unique portrait, just as an underpainting would in other mediums. I started this young man with a very rough sketch not really paying attention to polishing my lines because I love how the lines show through in the final piece. It adds movement, spontanaity and authenticity to the final piece.. Start adding your roadmap. This is just a light wash of your reds and blues (grey). I don't use a grid so this light wash is a lot easier to cover up any mistakes in subsequent layers if I find my drawing is off. .  Time to add some real darks. This is where you really start to see where your values need to be pushed. What was once  dark is now a mid tone in this work. So I added more washes of color. This toned paper gives you your local color and really does most of the work for you.   I found this guy well balanced at this stage but he was lacking in the umph factor. So I went in and added some de...

We have been fortunate to have avoided the apocalyptical floods, but I just can't sit back while others are struggling. So to help with the victims of the flood I will be donating 25% of the monies raised from the sale of any painting sold from today until Sunday to the ADRF. This is a community relief fund partnership with the Abbotsford Community Foundation, Chamber of Commerce and the University of the Fraser Valley. I will be posting the amount raised and the check going out for transparency. With Christmas around the corner, give a gift that keeps on giving. See more at www.eclecticstudio.ca 4 * 6 inch  Watercolor on paper 

Have you ever looked at your painting and thought what can I do to amp this painting up? That is how I felt about this piece. My initial idea for painting this lowland gorilla was to use a palette knife and a  complimentary color scheme of turquoise and red knife painting, but I found like it was lacking something.    I was really liking the knife texture to indicate the leathery skin of this beast but wasn't loving the color combination for this specific piece so I pulled out my basic paint program fooled around with some color using the value = color theory and flipped this painting on its head.  I really love this painting now, it really pops off the canvas.  How do you deal with dead paintings?  This painting is available for sale www.eclecticstudio.ca  

  Suave  is an original one-of-a-kind inked abstract rendition of a handsome middle aged man that just exudes a debonair aura when you look deep into his eyes.  This is an original piece of art, not a print.  7.5 * 10.5 inch  ink on acid free paper  I offer free worldwide shipping on orders over $200. This product will be packaged sandwiched between stiff substrates and shipped in a bubble wrapper.  For more original art, direct from the artist, stop by  the shop , sign up to be the first to know of new and exciting product releases.

Everybody has a little Weirdness  ready to show through no matter the age, and this funny ink piece is a tongue in cheek representation of a middle aged crossed-eyed man wearing pop bottle glasses letting his inner crazy out. This one of a kind portrait was created using a ballpoint pen on paper and is available for purchase from the link above. 

Thank you for stopping by for another step-by-step tutorial on how I drew this African girl in a turban.  I am not a traditionalist when it comes to drawing. I don't use any fancy tools or grids, gosh I don't even use a pencil, actually using a pencil or eraser has become a hindrance instead of a help. I start and finish all of my work in pen and upside down. Most of us have read or should have Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain on their to-read list, well one of the most valuable lessons she teaches is flipping your work upside down. You trick your eyes into actually seeing what is in front of you and not what you think you see. Your mind is much better at picking up spatial changes, angles, and values much better when your mind doesn't label an object.   As you see from the following example I keep my lines loose and flowing and I develop the overall shapes and form of my subject.  At this stage, I am not worried about the details just the of the ...

Its been months in the making but I finally pushed the button and we are live! CLICK TO ENTER www.eclecticstudio.ca If you see something you like and I haven't added the format you are interested in please contact me. I'm always adding new products so sign up to get updates. Thank you for all your support

You still have plenty of time to whip up these incredibly easy Halloween props for your outdoor display. I added 3 new gravestones to the yard this year. We are out in the country so decorating is mainly for us and any straggler that happens to come down our road while out for their Sunday drives, but it is my favorite time of year and I can't let that go to waste. It is also the first time in 3 years that we have even seen our Halloween stuff because it has been in storage so it is just like Christmas morning around here.  All of my grave markers are attached to 2*6 scraps to give them weight and stability. Super easy to put together using basic dollar store items (the plastic 1/2 skull, the plastic spider, and the face-changing pictures) a little paint and glue to bring it all together, and there you have some one-of-a-kind spooktacular props. www.eclecticstudio.ca

Wow, I can not believe how much our lives have changed in 3 short years. We finally found our forever home in the beautiful Kootenays, gave up the hustle and bustle of corporate life, and have become semi-retired homesteaders. As I am not very good at downtime I needed to come up with something that fills my heart with joy as well as my free time. It has always been a dream of mine to have a dedicated art studio and a fantasy to have a gallery, Well this year, with the support and coaxing from my husband, I am finally making things happen.   One of the buildings is perfect for this endeavor, now we just need to find a contractor that will work in the middle of the boonies to bring my dreams to fruition. Until that time I am advertising as a working studio and so far from the visitors coming into or out of the States it is slowly garnering attention.   I took a few years off from selling and now I feel like I am starting from scratch, having to relearn all of the intr...

It's time for a change and PIVOT seems to be the 2020 word of the year. I will be so happy when this year is over, as many of us will be, but we also have so much to look forward to in 2021 and beyond.  We bought the farm??? acreage??? homestead?? we are still trying to identify the niche we fit into. We knew this day was coming for the past few years and it has taken that long to find the right property, in the right area for the right price. We are so excited to be closing on 2.667 acres in the banana belt of Canada in just over 3 weeks. It is exactly what we have been looking for. "Usable" land is hard to find when you are in the mountains as everything is either straight up, right on the highway, a gravel pit or you sit on your neighbors lap, none of the above would suffice. But we found it and it has most of the infrastructure already in place: hay barn, sheds, paddocks, corral, gazebo, private road, 1 neighbor (which we cant see) and the start of a garden area, 10 m...

  Some big changes have happened to my family through the holiday, I was offered an incredible position in the location were we vacation. But this move involves leaving my husband and kids behind until the house sells. #stressful Thankfully I am able to get home regularly. So without the chaos of family life I have had a lot of quiet time on my hands, so to fill my time I try and get out hiking as much as possible.  This community offers plenty of trails in town and even more within a short drive. The Community Forest is an amazing place to go for a walk, offering plenty of trails to discover. Yesterday while I was out I took the opportunity to snap a few shots for my reference library and thought I would share. Hope you enjoy.

I created this old sailor painting in my watercolor journal using a limited watercolor palette, black and white gel pens and a waterpen pen. Waterpens are plastic cartridge pens with plastic or synthetic bristles that are filled with water and work well in a travel journal. But when you are use to professional supplies these take a little bit to get use to as nothing beats beautiful sables, but sables do not transport well in my travel bag, and transporting a water supply is a pain.  Not a great painting, but I really love the play of lights against darks. 

Date night! Halloween is our most favorite time of the year. It's where we adults can dip into the tickle trunk without judgement. Lol ;) As a family we look forward to participating in our communities zombie walk and this year was no exception. If I had more time our outfits would have had a little more thought put in but with only 30 minutes and 4 people, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.   This little man rocked it this year with the gunshot through his eye ball. I created this effect with a paper cupcake liner, cut to size, and adhered it to his face using liquid latex. I built up the edges using latex, single ply tissue and a little fake skin to blend the edges. The inside was painted black and the outside was layers of bruising (yellow, green, red, blue) then the fake blood was dropped on and allowed to drip down his face. Fake blood was also splashed on his face. This gives the illusion of a very realistic freshly fed zombie.    We also grab...

We came across this old car rotting in the woods at Cottonwood Lake BC. It seemed to have run off the road, rolled, and came to rest at the bottom of the gully. Its motor was found a few feet from the vehicle and I'm sure this old car definatly has a story to tell. Feel free to use this pictures in your work, but please give credit where credit is due.

I chose to use a grisaille technique for the painting of this old man in watercolor. Grisaille is an old technique oil painters used to develop a monochromatic value study, kinda like a road map for your painting. This later served as a base for the addition of  transparent layers of color. For this painting, I chose to use a limited palette of dioxazine purple, Naples yellow,  alizarin crimson for the face with a pop or 2 of transparent orange and green gold at the end. **This is not a palette I would choose again and here's why. Naples yellow doesn't pack any punch and is opaque. This is not a great mix when you need to cover or mute the purple. Diox purple is also strong stainer, making it difficult to remove pigment. Sometimes this is ok, but didn't really help on this piece. I started this gentleman with an ink sketch that can be found in my Strathmore watercolor 400 series journal. I love the quality of paper in this journal but I wish it wou...