Posted on 7/11/2020 6:48:21 PM
By Tracie Thompson
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Those who have taken any of my classes are likely to have done a couple of basic exercises:
The Ridiculously Simple Landscape
and
Color Mixing for the Clueless
Two versions of the "Ridiculously Simple Landscape" -- one of which is obviously less simple. These were both classroom demos, made with my basic "Color Mixing for the Clueless" palette.
These are useful starting points if you're new to painting or you feel that you are lacking some basic, foundational concepts. The "simple landscape" consists of sky and open prairie. There are no trees to paint, no mountains, no complicated clouds, no water with its reflections (unless you want to, of course). There is ground and there is sky ... and you get a basic intro to:
Dividing the space -- that is, how much will be ground and how much will be sky. This is the first, key element of designing any landscape painting.
How to mix various greens -- from near-black, to vibrant middle tones, to muted and pale
How and why to paint a sky using more than just one blue color and white
Why the direction of your brush strokes really matters
How to get the illusion of land and sky receding into the distance, rather than having what looks like a flat wall painted with blue and green
"Color Mixing for the Clueless" will introduce you to the double primary palette. You'll learn to mix with six colors -- two versions each of red, yellow, and blue -- plus white. I used this pared-down palette to help myself get a better foundation with mixing colors, and I've found it helpful for most painters.
It's also flexible! Once you understand the principles, you can use very different double primary palettes favored by other artists, create your own version from scratch, or add extra colors to get specific effects that you need. Double primary palettes are a concept the way that cars are a concept. There are many different models.
Since the Ridiculously Simple Landscape uses the same paint colors and materials as Color Mixing for the Clueless, I have created a single materials list for both.
Want to paint along with the upcoming demo videos?
Here's where to get what you need:
Note that the oils I use are water-mixable. If you prefer traditional oils, just replace the Artisan water-mixable paints with standard oils in whichever brand you like (but take care about getting a good Alizarin Crimson and at least one yellow that doesn't contain white). I'm guessing that a lot of us are working from home during The Year of COVID and would prefer not to have solvent fumes in our houses.
If you're just interested in color mixing, the above list is all you will need. However, if you would like to paint your own version of the Ridiculously Simple Landscape, you will want these cheap, crappy -- uh, I mean affordable and great for natural grass textures -- chip brushes. Available at hardware stores everywhere, but if you want to order a nice little set, they're here:
Posted on 7/3/2020 12:56:43 PM
By Tracie Thompson
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Today, I'm posting something I've found few art students have been taught:
HOW TO READ A PAINT TUBE so you know what's in there before you buy. This is particularly useful now that a lot of us are ordering online during the COVID crisis.
Oils, acrylics, and watercolors generally list which pigments are in the tube. Some of the really cheap ones don't, and those are typically not worth buying. For this demo, I grabbed four colors -- two acrylics, and two oils. Note: if you're learning to paint in acrylic, see my thoughts on paint quality at the end of this post.
Let's look at these and figure out where the pigment lists are and how to read them. We're looking for either the actual pigment name, or for a cryptic-seeming code of letters and numbers, such as PG7, PW6, or PR202.
P = pigment — the “P” is always the first letter. It will be followed by one of these:
B or Bl = blue
Br = Brown
G = green
K or Bk = black
Y = yellow
O = orange
R = red
V = violet
W = white
Third, there will be a number. Example: PW6, Pigment White 6, is Titanium White. The numbers can be helpful if you need to find an exact match for a certain color, though there are variations even then, frustrating as that is. They're also great if you're trying to figure out whether Winsor Blue is actually phthalocyanine blue; you grab a tube labeled as phthalo blue and compare the numbers (they are, indeed, the same thing). Generally, just knowing which colors of pigment are in there -- is this green a pure, single pigment or is it a mixture, and if so, is there black or white in it? -- is what's most important.
The tube above is a genuine Cobalt Violet, and we can see it's a single pigment, PV49.
Below, a Sap Green. "Sap Green" is not a standardized color, so paint makers can sell pretty much anything as Sap Green. If you choose to use it, be sure to know what's in it, as brands will vary wildly.
Below is the Liquitex professional grade Alizarin Crimson. This is a very necessary color, but like Sap Green, Alizarin Crimson is a free-for-all. The original Alizarin was prone to fading and is hard to find these days, so we have approximations instead. Some are really awful substitutes. Alizarin should be a deep, transparent wine red -- not pink, not magenta, not fire-engine red. This is a nice tube.
WHAT A “HUE” or “IMIT” IS
Many colors will be labeled things like “cadmium yellow medium hue” or “alizarin crimson permanent” or "cobalt blue imit." This means an imitation of the real pigment. There are three usual reasons for this:
The genuine color is expensive, so this is a cheaper alternative
The genuine color is toxic, so this is a nontoxic alternative
The genuine color is prone to fading, so this is a lightfast alternative.
Alizarin crimson, sap green, and hooker’s green go under #3 — the original color wasn’t very lightfast, so most anything you find now will be a “hue” or sometimes “permanent” version. Formulas for these colors vary a LOT; there is no standard for them.
Cadmium red, yellow, and orange colors are often “hue” for reasons of expense or toxicity. Imitation cadmium yellows are useful, but not in the same way as real cadmiums, unfortunately. In my experience, they're either too transparent to cover darker colors the way you sometimes need them to, or else they're nice and opaque because titanium white has been added to them. This isn't a big deal until you need to mix a deep green or add some yellow to a darker color, and the color comes out chalky or muddy. It's not you. It's the white in your yellow paint. I've had students come in with the new "Cadmium-free" yellows and have found out they all have white in them, and the tubes don't list the actual pigments they contain. They do not mix the same way as real cadmium yellows, so be advised if you're considering using them.
IF YOU ARE ORDERING ONLINE, you will find that many major retailers provide pigment information on the tubes of paint they sell. It's usually a clickable link or a tab, if not part of the main listing for the color.
LIGHTFASTNESS & TRANSPARENCY
Many tubes of paint will give a lightfastness rating and indicate whether the color is opaque, semi-opaque, semi-transparent, or transparent. See my photos of the backs of the Alizarin and Sap Green tubes, above, both of which are marked as transparent. Most modern colors have very good lightfastness ratings. Transparency or opacity makes colors suitable for different uses.
As an example, cadmium yellows are opaque, which means that you can paint bright yellow flowers or autumn leaves with them and the color will show up well. Opacity = hiding power.
Transparency = you can see through it; it tends to create a sense of atmosphere or depth; very nice for under-layers and shadows. Transparent yellows such as Indian yellow or Hansa yellow are great for mixing deep, clear greens, or warming up areas of shadow. Some "Cadmium yellow hue" colors are also good for this, provided no white has been added.
RANDOM THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR: Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, and Hooker’s Green
Alizarin isn’t standardized, so literally anything can be labeled Alizarin, and it’s one of the hardest paints to buy. See my notes above on what it should look like. Increasingly I'm seeing "student" acrylics selling Naphthol Crimson, a bright, opaque fire-engine red, labeled as Alizarin. Naphthol Crimson is a great color, but USELESS for anything you need Alizarin for. The other common substitute is Quinacridone Magenta, which is just too cold and violet to make a decent Alizarin.
I no longer use Sap or Hooker’s green, but if you like them, be sure yours doesn’t contain black. Some do, like the one I photographed above, and are really muddy because of it.
BRAND NAMES are confusing. Makers often dislike difficult pigment names such as quinacridone, dioxazine, and phthalocyanine. You’ll see “Thio violet,” “Winsor blue,” et cetera. “Permanent magenta” usually means quinacridone. Knowing how to read the label will help you see what you’re really buying.
ADULTERATION with white and black is increasingly common, especially in acrylics. I'm even seeing it in colors that used to be immune, such as dioxazine purple and phthalo blue. It’s best to avoid such colors when you can. While you can always add your own white or black if you need to, you can’t take it out if it’s already there, so adulterated colors have much more limited usefulness.
STUDENT GRADE vs. PRO GRADE
Some “student grade” lines are much better than others, and it is oddly easier to find good student grade oils than good student acrylics.
Student grade paints use more filler and less pigment, making the colors weaker and more transparent, so you have to use more. I also find most student acrylic lines adulterate some of their colors with white and/or black, and many sell hot reds (Naphthol Crimson) or cold pinks (Quinacridone Magenta) as “Alizarin Crimson.” Save money where you can, but read labels carefully.
Here's that note I promised about acrylic paints in particular:
As painting has exploded in popularity, the market for inexpensive beginner/"student" acrylic paints seems to have skyrocketed. There are a lot of beginners shopping for paints, and paint makers have taken to cutting corners on quality in order to compete on price.
That's my guess, anyway. As an instructor I have noticed that in recent years, there's been a real trend of selling crappy acrylic paints to beginner-level artists, presumably because they are unlikely to realize that they are suffering from poor materials. I've seen these paints do a lot of harm to the confidence of beginner artists, and I have strong feelings about that. But I will leave the rant for another day.
As of this writing, my favorite acrylics are Liquitex professional grade, which can be the "Heavy Body" tubes, or the little "Soft Body" jars (Golden is also excellent overall).
But it was Liquitex which, with its line of "BASICS" in the big clear plastic tubes, really kicked off the trend of selling crappy acrylic paint to beginners. The worst are BASICS and endless imitators which have appeared, also in large, clear plastic tubes. In my experience, none of them are worth buying.
Winsor-Newton's Galeria is an okay student grade line, as is Grumbacher Academy and Blick's own brand (including Blick and Utrecht), but even they are starting to pull stuff they know they shouldn't, such as Grumbacher putting black and sometimes white pigment in its darker colors (such as Phthalo Blue) and Blick selling Naphthol Crimson as Alizarin in its student-grade, but not professional-grade, acrylics. They're well aware that more experienced artists won't buy that. Always read the paint tube, because even makers I used to trust are jumping on the "newbies won't know the difference" bandwagon. I mix brands a lot, in order to get what I need at a reasonable price.
It's July 2020 as I write this, and this problem is a LOT less prevalent in oil paints. But that could change; you never know. Getting in the habit of checking pigment content is always a good thing, no matter what you're using.
Posted on 3/25/2019 12:14:01 PM
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The Rider, 11 x 14" oil on panel.
This is what you usually see. The finished work, once all the thinking through has been done.
Today I'll give you a look at how this painting happened in the first place.
1. The source image, above. In this case, the reference image I used came from videos of recently captured Mustangs, posted to Youtube by the Bureau of Land Management. Pausing these videos and saving screen shots gives me some amazing source material for art.
"But," you say, "this is a totally crappy image! It's blurry around the edges, the details are all lost, and the background is ugly!"
Well, yes. But I really love the drape of the mane, the contrast of black mane/light coat, and the way the light sharply defines all the shapes of bone and muscle. When working from photos, know what you want, and know you can eliminate the parts you don't need.
2. First step was a study sketch in charcoal on newsprint. This horse is seen at an interesting angle which shows some of the underside of its jaw, and I wanted to get a better grip on how to depict that. Sketching it this way helped. I made errors in the sketch (such as the head being far too short/wide) that I was then able to avoid in the painting.
3. I had an 11x14" panel and needed to make sure the composition would work. I was at Gallery Equus and I'd forgotten my print of the source pic, so I cropped on my iPad and finger-sketched a sort of owl-blob. Usually I work from printed photos, but if all I have is something on my iPad or phone, I'll use that rather than just not painting.
4. The panel was already green. I'd painted it that color about a year prior, for another idea that simply never gelled. I drew on it in vine charcoal -- the only thing I had that was dark enough to show up well. Not an easy drawing; lots of corrections and changes had to be made. In the process of this I flipped the owl around to show its back. That let me give it a more interesting shape. The photo above is just after the charcoal sketch, as I began filling in some of the darkest areas using a thin mixture of dark purple-black.
5. Had I realized I'd be blogging this, I'd have taken more shots during the actual painting process. I'll do that next time. At this point I had most of the important parts done. It was time to start making refinements, such as adding the necklace and medallion, which was a transformation of the auction tag in the source image. I was "sketching" it in with some purple-black, which is how I start most shiny gold things. Shiny surfaces are made out of very strong, sharp light/dark contrast. If you start with the yellow you won't get that; your darks won't be dark enough. Start with the deepest shadows, build up from there, and it's shockingly easy to get shiny metal to appear like magic.
I also realized I had too many light spots in the mane, breaking it up into too much visual noise; and that the structure of the neck and shoulder juncture was "off" -- there was a flattened area that needed some light/dark shifts to make it three dimensional again. There were various refinements to the horse's face, especially around the muzzle; a little more development of movement and texture in the mane; and I enlarged the owl a bit. You'll see the difference if you scroll back up to the finished work.
For those who are curious about the technical parts of this, the surface is a deep cradled wood panel I probably got from Michael's Arts & Crafts. The green is Ultramarine Blue + Cadmium Yellow Medium (acrylic) mixed with a lot of clear acrylic gloss medium. I brushed it on with a large chip brush from the hardware store. This panel had been sitting in my studio, staring greenly at me, for months on end. I picked it up to paint on because I just couldn't take looking at its blank green face one more day.
The palette for the oil painting:
Ultramarine Blue
Phthalocyanine "Thalo" Blue
Alizarin Crimson
Cadmium Red Light
Quinacridone Gold
Azo Yellow
Titanium White
For most of this painting I was not using the Cad Red or the Azo Yellow. I used small amounts of them in later stages to warm up some of the greys in lighter areas. The necklace and medallion are done largely with Quin Gold mixed with some purple (Ultramarine + Alizarin) for the darker areas and some white and orange (Cad Red Light + Azo Yellow) for the lighter ones.
Most of this painting was done with fairly large, stiff flat brushes. Hog bristle and Silver Brush "Bristlon" primarily. I held off on the small brushes until I really needed them for some of the detail work in the owl, the necklace, and the horse's eye.
The "earth tone" colors in the owl were done largely with Quin Gold + Alizarin + tiny additions of white. On the shadow side I added less white and a little Ultramarine to that mixture.
Thalo blue isn't a color I use a ton of, owing to its tendency to get into EVERYTHING and turn entire paintings turquoise. However, it mixes an utterly gorgeous, deep transparent green when you add some Quin Gold to it, and a super deep purple when mixed with Alizarin. I used the deep green in the area around the horse on the left, and some of the purple + tiny bits of Quin Gold for many of the "black" elements of the horse. What I call "purple-black" is a deep purple with some yellow added to shift it from purple to more of a blackish color. No actual black pigment is involved.
Quinacridone Gold can be hard to get in oils (mine is Holbein Duo water mixable oil), but if you can't find it, Indian Yellow + Thalo Blue will give you the same deep jewel green.
If you have favorite color mixtures, or questions about anything I did in this painting, I'd love to hear about them in comments here. I'm constantly learning from other painters, and that includes students of mine who are just starting out.
Posted on 6/12/2018 6:03:57 PM
By Tracie Thompson
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Peonies, 12x16” oil on linen
Peonies, 12x16” Oil on Linen. This painting is available on my website, in the “Landscapes” collection (for now, I am putting my floral works there), at $450 unframed. For those of you who paint, or might like to start, this may be of interest: All the soft, varied tones in this painting were done with six paint colors, plus white. The colors are: Ultramarine Blue Quinacridone Gold (a very transparent amber yellow) Azo Yellow (a very bright, neutral/almost green, translucent yellow) Quinacridone Rose (very pure, transparent, relatively light magenta pink) Alizarin Crimson (deep, transparent wine red) Cadmium Red Light (bright, opaque, very warm, nearly orange red). The deep greens in the leaves are Ultramarine + Quinacridone Gold, an absolutely gorgeous, dark, natural-looking green. Indian Yellow will produce something nearly identical but my tube of Indian Yellow, brand new, has vanished into the ether somewhere. I used Quinacridone Gold with a tiny bit of Ultramarine (to create a warm yellowish green rather than a deep, blue-green tone) with tons of mineral spirits, as a very thin wash over the entire surface before I began. All that pink in the flowers seemed to call for a green undertone and I found it served me well. Some of it actually shows through in the lighter colored blooms and parts of the backdrop/table top. The brighter leaf greens are Azo Yellow and Ultramarine and some amount of at least one red. I blended touches of Cadmium Red Light into most of them. The main pink in the flowers is Quinacridone Rose, a color I haven’t used much before, but which gave me exactly the middle pink tone I wanted. The deeper wine-colored flowers have their shadowy parts layered in Alizarin with a bit of my dark Ultramarine/Quinacridone Gold green added. Highlights, touched in wet-into-wet, are Quinacridone Rose + white. Where I needed some warmer tones of pink in the blooms, I made those with Cadmium Red Light, lots of white, and a bit of pale warm green to imperceptibly soften the effect. The yellowish tones in the blooms are Quinacridone Gold with plenty of white. I used Quinacridone Gold instead of my usual Cadmium Yellow Medium because that amber quinacridone color is so subtle and transparent, and made something immediately closer to what I saw in front of me. The grays in the surroundings are all mixtures of the palette colors in varying ratios, plus various amounts of white. Where I wanted cooler, bluer tones, more Ultramarine. Greener colors, more of one of the yellows; and so forth. Those areas are almost entirely painted with a small palette knife which caused some subtle linen texture to emerge through the paint. I liked that effect, so I left it rather than brushing it out. I wasn’t using any medium in this painting, or any thinners after the initial green wash was applied. The lighter colored petals are particularly thickly painted, many of them with my palette knife, so this will take some time to dry. I’ll note that it’s far from a precise representation — I was going for the feeling of the blooms, not exact accuracy — and I enjoyed the risky feeling of leaving parts very unfinished, undefined.
Posted on 9/13/2017 8:10:20 PM
By Tracie Thompson
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For a year or so I've been joking that I could teach a whole workshop JUST on how to draw dog noses. They are an endless source of frustration to my students.
As it happens, I do have an upcoming class on drawing animals from photographs, so I'll share some of my class notes here for free. This is not "THE" way to draw dog noses (and eyes, page 2), but it's a simple explanation of how I begin.
Want to print these for your own reference? Click the images to download a PDF version!
Posted on 9/8/2017 3:05:36 PM
By Tracie Thompson
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A new addition to my Small Wonders collection, this piece began as a classroom demonstration and developed afterward into a tiny finished work. It is painted on heavy cotton paper and can be matted to fit a standard 8 x 10" frame, or framed in a 5 x 7" with a stiff backing and no glass required. Price shown is unframed, art only. I ship anywhere.
Posted on 5/3/2017 11:29:07 AM
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Cecropia Moth, in VERY mixed media, 6 x 11"
Recently it dawned upon me that I've been this way since I was in kindergarten: Airplanes, birds, butterflies; if it took to the air I loved it and would draw it.
The past two weeks, while recovering from a prolonged bout with bronchitis, I've revisited that old love. The results are below.
Flying Crow, ink with pastel pencils and touches of white acrylic, 11 x 14". Available in a custom frame, $245; frame is a black wooden shadowbox with some very crow-appropriate details. I will email photos on request.
Barn Owl #1, oil on paper, 6 x 6", sold
The first Barn Owl began as a classroom demonstration at Minnetonka Center for the Arts. It came to life in a way that surprised me; two days later, I chose to create a larger version on canvas.
April Moonlight (Barn Owl #2), 14 x 11" oil on canvas, framed, $425. This is available at Breakaway Arts through June 1st, 2017.
Cecropia Moth, 6 x 11" mixed media, and I do mean mixed. Watercolor, acrylic, candy wrapper foil, ink, and pastel pencils. I ... I think that's everything. I plan to have it framed and available during Art-A-Whirl® on the weekend of May 19-21.
Yes, I'm participating in Art-A-Whirl®!
When: Friday, May 19th - 5:00-10:00 p.m.
Where: All over NE Minneapolis -- but my location is in the Grain Belt Bottling House, 79 13th Ave. NE, Minneapolis 55413.
Posted on 9/17/2016 11:53:35 AM
By Tracie Thompson
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Sir Fluffston Dines Out, oil on canvas
Some of you may recall that, late last fall, my own Rescue Creature -- a big, pretty horse who came out of the hormone drug industry -- ran into trouble and racked up massive vet bills. Calendar sales helped a lot, covering more than 60% of it, yet I still owe the vet $1700 I've been unable to pay.
"Vet bills! Yuck!" says Twilight the Wonder Mare.
I've chosen to paint my way out of this corner! I'm offering:
10 x 10"* Original portraits in oil, on a heavy "gallery wrapped" canvas (see photos below)
ANY breed or species so long as your critter is a rescue of some kind. Stray cat, pound puppy, Craigslist emergency -- it all counts. Rabbits! Guinea pigs! Birds! Dogs and cats! Horses! Mules! Come one, come all.
ONLY 12 AVAILABLE
$250 each, a very good value for custom oil portraits.
Some examples of oil portraits in this size range. You'll get to choose your style -- more whimsical as in The Big Meowski and Fluffston the Bunny, or the bold, loose, painterly style of the horses (Darla, top, and Leo) shown here. For more examples of my animal portrait work, you can see the animal portrait gallery here on my website.
Front and back view of the sturdy 1.5" deep gallery-wrapped canvases for this series. The thick stretchers give these a nice physical presence on the wall, and a pleasing weight. I paint the edges, so framing is optional; your portrait will arrive with a hanging wire in place on the back, ready to go on the wall.
Here's how to get one:
Send me photos of your animal and tell me their story; the story part is going to be important!
Together, we'll choose which photo/pose to use and finalize the design.
Go here and use the "purchase" button (scroll down to the bottom of the listing) to put down your 50% deposit and reserve your portrait. Or mail me a check, and let me know it's on its way. The deposit allows me to cover living expenses while I complete this series.
Upon completion and approval of the art, send me a check for the second 50%, made out to Stillwater Equine Clinic. Those funds are going directly to my vet, NOT to me.
I am booking portraits immediately, and will begin painting on October 1, 2016, finishing on approximately December 1. The timing makes this a great holiday gift option! I ship USPS Priority Mail, with tracking and insurance, for $20.
These portraits, and the stories that go with them, will be used for a series of greeting cards and a 2017 wall calendar.
Happy Incoming Holidays to all of you!
*Some portraits may need to vary in format; if it really calls for a 9 x 12 or 8 x 10 canvas instead of a square, I will be flexible.
Posted on 8/1/2016 3:41:10 PM
By Tracie Thompson
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...we awe hunting wandscape.
Here's a brief overview of how it works, from my hunt on the evening of 7/31/16.
1. Pack your gear. Field easel (mine's a Guerrilla Painter box, the medium French Resistance model, on an old camera tripod); paints and brushes; solvent; rags; sketch book and pencils; canvases; bottle of water; enough DEET to choke a camel. The DEET is very important.
2. Trudge outward. Your gear is heavy, so this is not fun. But if you're fortunate, the slog will be rewarded as you spot your quarry. In this case: a tall stand of brilliant Joe Pye weed at the edge of a pond.
Stop moving and set up. This is the point when you are very very VERY glad you brought enough DEET to choke a camel.
3. Aim carefully. There's a lot going on and you can't catch it all, so you have to edit. Thumbnail sketches (not shown, but I did two of them) are crucial. This time, I opted to leave the sky entirely out, and only have it show in the reflections on the pond.
4. Work until it's too late to keep working, then work at least another 15 minutes, because you're in the groove and sometimes not very bright about that sort of thing. The photo above, taken when I finally stopped, looks like I still had a decent amount of light. I didn't. My phone just sees remarkably well in the dark.
5. Carefully cart your trophy home and spend however much more time is required to finish it. For this one, roughly three hours, which was longer than I spent working on it on site.
6. Bask in the glow of the finished work for approximately 6.8 seconds, at which point you will get cranky and want to make a better one.
7. Return to Step 1.
Posted on 7/15/2016 7:03:59 PM
By Tracie
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Commissioned Kitty, July 2016
I'm not new to blogging, but am new to this particular platform. Here I am with a whole new blog. Where to begin?
Well ... it is the internet, so I will do what is done on the internet: Cat picture!
Macy, at top, is 10 x 10", in layers of watercolor, pastel pencils, and white pastel on tan cotton paper. Below, the snapshot I was using for reference. You can see the transformation here, from an okay picture to the art that results; this is fairly routine for me, especially in cases such as this one, when the portrait is a memorial and the photos on hand are all there is.
The most obvious change is that I didn't want her tail being cropped out of the portrait, so I repositioned it to curl around her feet.
Then there was the brightness, which is pretty straightforward, and after that, the color adjustment. Experience has taught me that indoor shots of animals are often far too "cool" blue-toned (if the light is from a window, as it is here) or far too warm (if the light is from an incandescent bulb). I corrected for that by adding the warm browns that the camera didn't catch. When I'm making these sorts of changes from the source image, I do check with the client to make sure I'm getting it right.
Currently I'm working on a Jack Russell Terrier named Mickey.
Would you like your own work of art, of your own cat, or dog, or horse, or ... well, whatever you have? I've done rabbit portraits, birds, lizards, a turtle -- I am equal-opportunity, species-wise. You can email me your photos and we'll talk about what style and size you've got in mind, and any deadline constraints.
