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How it works: You email your photo(s) to hannah@hannahmcdonald.com. If you live out of town you send full or partial payment up-front. I email you when I’m done with your portait(s) and either hand-deliver or ship to you. And that’s all!
Hi there! I’ve been playing with lots of media recently. Namely: Glitter! Pens! Paint! Well, okay, everything.
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
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? 
Or, so as not to confuse the issue, oil painting of an orange. From my thankful for oranges picture, here.
They are roughly 12×4″ and are $60 for the pair.
Haha! I like to amuse myself, when not with puns, with just cosmically nerdy phrases. “Pigs in Spaaaaaace” from the Muppets works for me, too. Anyway. My point. See the similarities in color between the paintings and the mood board? Proof that gathering inspiration works. The ideas permeate my mind, remix and reemerge, all because of a silly moodboard. My advice for anyone trying to come up with a cohesive vision for a project is make sure NOT to skip this step!
I am reminded of a quote I came across the other day: “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character reap a destiny.” -Stephen Covey. That’s where the DESTINY part comes in. I see this little corner of my life called ‘artwork’ and I notice how in the small and grand scale of life, the vision is just as important as the work that goes into making the vision a reality.
Also, if ‘you make what you see’ is as true as ‘you are what you think,’ maybe I should lay off the J.Crew catalog, huh?
xoxo,
Hannah
Also Coming to Frost Me Sweet (if there is enough room on the walls!)
Vino, anyone? Since Frost me Sweet is also a Bistro and Wine bar I thought I’d do a Wine Septet. See how the glasses of wine fade from red to white? These are $15 apiece or $95 for the set.
…I will try to add to this post as time goes on (rather than doing separate posts). ‘Dibs’ are more than welcome; it would be fun to put ‘sold’ signs on some of these before they even go to hang! Rest assured the sold sign would be super cute.
…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. 🙂
…I’m on a roll, but we’ll see how long it lasts! Painting has been a nice quiet activity for getting over a cold. 🙂
I forgot to post the pictures of the preliminary sketches. Note to self: Knock it off! People like to watch things from the ground up. Anyway, this painting is not finished, which is why it looks a little strange. Never fear.
Better one, better two? And here’s little seester in progress…
All, all images are copyright hannahmcdonald.com.
There she is!
artisallaroundus 
