Roll! Roll! Roll in ze Mud!

I'm so excited to show you all this illustration! It's finally finished and it was SO MUCH FUN! I found myself smiling and giggling out loud sometimes while painting and I'm not ashamed because I love doing this! THIS is what I do! It's what makes me happy :D

(so if anyone would like to donate to the Annie Hobbs Illustration fund... please see my contact information! hahaha jk :)

A little background on what this piece was done for, my cousin Jessica had her 2nd little munchkin, Ally, a few months ago and I told her I would do a couple paintings for her as a gift.  She has done up her kiddo's room as a sort of cowboy/farmyard theme and these are to go with her decor.  This is the first of the two! It was meant to be a surprise, but she's been dying to see it and since she wasn't at our other cousin's baby shower this weekend.... she missed out on getting to take it home! Technically, it's still a surprise because she will see it in it's final form today hopefully.  Jessica, you should have come!! I can't keep my fans waiting! ;P

Here's the final illustration!

(*click on the picture to view them larger*)

Acrylic on Canvas

I wanted you guys to know too, I took these with my camera phone so I know the clarity isn't perfect. To be honest, I've been hearing a lot about work getting ripped off of blog posts and it's made me a little worried about final illos like this one. I don't like watermarks, but I don't know if slightly blurry pictures are any less detrimental either. What do you guys think? I'll definitely include a professional photograph on my website portfolio, but I'm not so sure about putting it here. For now at least.

I also thought it would be fun to do some progression shots!

Here's some of the process so you can see how the canvas started and sort of what areas I focused on first.

I worked from the background with more subtle color choices to the foreground with a much brighter and bolder color range.

I utilized a lot of bright under painting with this and it worked really nice! I loved the warmth and tone it set while I built up the texture and rendering. 


Here's a shot of my poor desk! I have so many things on there that I'm trying to find space for haha

And here's one last shot of the momma pig... she's so fat and cute and silly! She makes me giggle :)

So there is the first of two in my "Barnyard Series" :) Again, I had so much fun painting this, although I have to confess, I'm really not a fan of acrylic paint! I've tried a few times with not a lot of success to use this type of paint and I really don't like it! I'd much rather use my watercolor and gouache instead.

Maybe it's because it dries super fast or the brushes I have aren't that good and go all wonky... I get frustrated because I can never get the amount of detail I want. I know that's probably weird to some of you... I dunno...

Until tomorrow!

I have another set of SUPER CUTE things to show you! get your "Awww-factor" on!