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Hi friends!
Did a little photo shoot for some friends….
One of the photos that I burned to their CD will be selected for their Christmas card.
YOU GUYS! I had NO idea you were such hams! 
The process….
Added a leetle bigger smile at the last minute!
Some of my latest commissions. For sizing and pricing check out hannahmcdonald.com. Some of my prices are about to go up and some will stay the same.
xo
Hannah
In case you’ve been to Some Bagels recently and wondered who painted the wall black and hung up artwork….. It…was….ME!! xox
These images are from a quirky British movie called Wild Target. We thought it would be a B movie but we loved it!
Good morning! I have been having fun perusing Becca Kallem’s artwork. Those little birdie tags down below are a gift from her. Artists do that, sometimes. She gave me permission to share some images from her website with you. You can check out her blog here and website here. Enjoy! I certainly have!
That sounds like a carnival sign but since Christmas is coming and since my 5×5’s have always been that price, I just thought you might like a friendly reminder. You’re welcome! In case you’re wondering how it works, you just attach me an image to hannah@hannahmcdonald.com. After I confirm that I can work with the photo, you just wait……….. and voila! Heartfelt, homemade awesomeness. Hint: I like to work from photos taken in good outdoor light with stronger light on one side of the face than the other. See how the blank paper shows through? 
My husband is related to the blushing bride. Isn’t this a beautiful (albeit chilly) wedding? Photography is by BenjHaisch.
This little oil-painted lass is by Emily Winfield Martin, author of Inside a black Apple blog, and a book I have called the Black Apple Paper Doll primer that I like quite a lot. Emily is a Pacific Northwest artist, and has been a guest on Martha Stewart. She has a very distinctive whimsical style as you can see by perusing her Etsy shop or BuyOlympia. FUN!! Another fun read is her auxiliary blog cataloging her vintage finds, Some Girls Wander By Mistake.
This picture haunts me in a good way. Can you guess what this woman is doing? She is praising the Lord. Her starved body is in that bed in Kenya, but her spirit is absolutely not. Whenever I see this picture, taken by Josh Reeder, I think of the passage in Habakkuk 3:17-18
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
A small part of me wants to argue with this woman. Why praise? But that, I suppose is the beauty of it. She is the authority on suffering here, and she still has chosen praise. There isn’t a more powerful testimony than that. And this picture…well, I’ve been meaning to get around to asking Josh to make a print of it for me. I think it is a hard picture to see, but I think it will work on my soul. I suppose that is what art is for, no?
Photo credits: Jamie Helwick
Lyrics from Thigpen’s Wedding
by Kemper Crabb
Sung by McCayla Butler Nee Hudson on our wedding day,
Seven years ago!
Here I set my face unto you,
Here I speak my heart’s true vow.
Here I choose to walk beside you,
Loving only you, my heart speaks true,
Forever more from now.
I will love you in the dawning
And in the bright noonday.
I will love you in the even.
Everyday I live, my heart I’ll give.
I’ll love you from my grave.
I have heard God in your laughter.
I have seen on Him your face.
And it’s clear now what He’s after,
For He wrote your name on my heart in flame.
It’s a wound I’ll not erase.
We will rise on wings of morning;
We will fly before the wind;
We will dwell within the mysteries
And the glories of Jehovah’s love,
A circle without end.
We will pitch our tents toward Zion
In the shadow of His love.
We will covenant between us;
We will covenant with the earth below
And with heaven up above.
We will covenant with the dust below
And the Spirit up above.
Dear Luna, I am sorry that things didn’t work out and that we ‘abandoned’ you. I hope you know it was for the best that you live at MeeMaw and Grandpa’s house, and that you know we still love you, even though we couldn’t quite…tolerate you. I should have seen this coming when the Nashville neighbors started calling you Lunatic. You really are, my dear, you really are.
…or maybe you haven’t thought about in a while. A lot of these are from comments people have made to me about my work or while watching me work.
1) I can’t draw. Yes, you can! Think back to when you were a child. Did you draw because you wanted your paper to look just like Peter or Suzy’s or because the world is such an interesting place and you want to process it through your crayons?
2) I can draw, but I can’t draw faces. Everything improves with practice. So even though you may be no genius at something, if you really want to do it and don’t like what you see, just keep practicing. Also, there are helpful rules of thumb you can apply to every face. For starters, we usually underestimate how big the forehead is. I think the eyes are literally halfway down the face. Weird, huh?
3) That looks so relaxing. Well, with faces, ‘filling in’ blocks of color is relaxing, but tweaking and teasing can be a little stressful. This guy who sat next to me in art class at Mead High exemplified this beautifully. He would draw for a little bit then get up and pace and whine and fidget. Drawing or painting or any sake of creating for its own sake is more relaxing than trying to produce a certain outcome, which is why it’s important to have a little of each.
4) You do that so FAST! Yeah, well, see #3. Parts of the process go fast. Also, sometimes you get lucky and can hit the nail on the head the first time. I do this random scribbly thing and I’m like hey! That looks like them! Other times I have to fight for it, pencil stroke at a time. By the way, I have to do a little plug for caricature artists. To embody and exaggerate a face in as few strokes as possible is quite a feat.
5) You’re using old school paints! Pretty much…although I recommend Yarka pan paints. I really do, even for kids, but just get one of the cheaper, smaller versions. I painted for years and years with my old crappy pan paints and there is something about this Yarka brand: the pigments are deeper and more clear and a little paint goes a long way. There are also tubes of watercolor paints and I own quite a few. These come in all colors, too, and experiment with these sometimes. My comfort zone are the pan paints, though, and sometimes I mix in a little bit of a tube of white paint to make a pastel color.
6) You need to raise your prices! After you do a painting for me. A lot of artists get too big for their britches too soon and start charging too much and don’t sell anything. I charge what the market will support. 🙂
artisallaroundus 
