Art by Niki Hilsabeck

"Homeward Bound" 6 x 12 Pastel on Paper Original sold Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/5989191-1-homeward-bound-pastel I was sure I would experience more bad karma with this paper... I bought the paper at a large creative supplies store, which shall not be named here. I was irritated because they no longer have the plain old block of cheap Strathmore art paper, so I bought some extra large pieces of toned paper for pasteling (Canson). When I got to the register, the cashier started to roll up the paper, and I snapped at her to leave it flat. Normally I try not to snap at anyone doing his or her job, so I felt guilty-- and the bad karma from that incident has been following this paper. It's taken a beating with some wrinkles and water drips, and has narrowly missed several cat and child-related mishaps. I promised myself I wouldn't snap at a cashier aga...

One of the things I like about Red Bubble is that it supports writers as well as visual artists. Writing comes out in all areas of my life-- I enjoy both creative and communicative writing. Writing is much easier than talking, because I get the chance to carefully edit what I'm saying. It also leaves little room for selective hearing or misinterpretation, since everything is right there in print. So, I'm adding a new page: A Writer with a Painting Problem (click here to view): http://artbynikihilsabeck.blogspot.com/p/writer-with-painting-problem-written.html I'll be updating this page with links to my Red Bubble journal or any other pieces of interest I write as I progress as an artist. If you're a writer, you know that you spend an awful lot of time avoiding the actual sitting down and writing part. So really, I should be doing more writing instead of all this painting-- which is why I consider myself a writer with a painting problem-- I keep picking up the paintbr...

"Sourpuss" 8.5 x 10.5 Pastel on paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/5982190-1-sourpuss Pet portraits, like people portraits, have a big pitfall: if you're painting an image of a person or animal you know well, your left brain is always whispering in your ear-- telling you that your portrait doesn't match up with the real thing. I wasn't even going to make this an actual pet portrait-- I just wanted to paint a stylized white and pink cat on a blue-green background for fun. Once I started blocking in the chalk, though, it felt wrong not to match her face up with the real thing, since I was using this cat as a model. It might have something to do with that accusing stare, which she shares with just about everyone she meets. I took a wildlife painting class some years back, and the big thing I took away from it was that the face gives the animal its personality. To get the face accurate, you have to turn off that left brai...

While painting again with my toddler, I started thinking about how much different life must be for artists today compared to those who created early cave paintings. "Lockin' Horns" 9 x 12 Watercolor and Pastel on Paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/5934557-1-lockin-horns We have the luxury of bright light whenever we want it, as long as the electricity is functioning. We can paint in a comfortable environment at pretty much any time of day and year, if we have the convenience of a mild climate or a thermostat. We can paint on just about any surface. Our colors come out of a tube, ready made and pre-mixed if we want them to be. We can share our works worldwide, thanks to the internet. Best of all, I can sit on my kitchen floor and swirl paint around with my little girl, and there's no pressure to do anything but enjoy the experience-- and, I don't have to worry about being eaten! Started the painting above with watercolo...

"Jewel Bug" 9 x 13 Pastel and Watercolor on Paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/5917275-1-jewel-bug Well, my little one has figured out that pencils make all kinds of interesting marks. I taped down some watercolor paper and handed her the paint board, and she immediately took a watercolor pencil in hand and began scribbling. The scribbles looked like branches to me, so I dipped the brush into the paint and sketched in some purple branches. She continued to add scribbles with her pencil, then swapped the pencil for the paintbrush (she gets pretty irritated with me if I don't let her take over with the brushes). I continued to work around her marks, and got something that looked like a crawfish on a branch as a result. Her attention span is pretty short, so once she turns her attention to smearing the water all over the floor, I usually add the finishing touches and let it dry. Later, I went over the painting with a heavy layer ...

"Mingoes" 9 x 12 Pastel on Paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/5912653-1-mingoes-pastel I always avoid the flamingoes-- they're noisy and they STINK! Of course, they're beautiful to look at. I managed to find a couple on their own, where the smell was a little less vile. I've never been particularly interested in these birds, because their images are used so often in the cheesiest of venues: dive bars, a Vegas hotel, bad tourist shirts. These two, however, strutting quietly through the water and taking an occasional drink, provided a much more dignified representation of the bird. Their necks make the most graceful shapes. Really, they can be just as pretty as swans, once they're away from their noisy friends. I originally did this picture on toothy pink Strathmore "art paper" with a china pencil. The paper was so textured, however, that it ate the china pencil and took away from the lights and darks of t...

This was a lonely-looking canopic jar in the original photo. In my first version, I ended up with a pretty dark painting-- cold light, warm shadow. I wasn't thrilled with the result, mostly because I was distracted by a crying toddler while I painted. Even though she was upstairs in another room, I had trouble tuning her out, and kept rushing my work so I could stop her crying (as moms are prone to do). I went back and noodled it a little, but I wasn't totally satisfied. So, I decided to try it from a different approach. I know that many people tend to imagine everything in Ancient Egypt as cold, dark, and dusty, since that's how the things they left behind look today (you would too, if you'd been sitting in a tomb for thousands of years). However, they lived in the constant bright light of the desert sun, and must have used bright colors in their creations too. I decided to make the brighter version to liven it up a little, and boy did it ever! I was much happ...

Although I enjoy the wine and the food, the real reason I want to go to the Temecula Wine and Balloon Festival every year is to see the balloon glow-- and take pictures of something you don't get to see too often: hot air balloons lit up against the backdrop of night. I've been painting some of these hot air balloons off and on for a few months. I've painted them with acrylic, mixed media, and plain old chalk pastel. It's difficult to strike the balance between the bold lights against the dark night with the soft shapes of the balloons. I found that if using a medium like acrylic, I needed to keep it extremely loose and keep the shapes simple. I need to keep the focus on basic shape, light, and dark, and leave out the details. This makes for some abstract-looking balloons (see below, left). "Night Balloons in Temecula" (left) "The Pechanga Balloon" (Right) On the other hand, having recently grown more comfortable mixing the oil and chalk pastels, I ...

I was beginning to suspect that blue was becoming my go-to color in all of my work-- I tend to use a lot of color complements, so if I pick up the blue, that attaches me to orange. It's just that it seems that blue is everywhere I look-- black, gray, even white often looks blue to me. I should have seen this coming; as a child, I colored all of the models' teeth in my mom's magazines blue, because I thought blue teeth looked prettier. I knew there was a problem when I glanced through my Red Bubble favorites a few days ago, and noticed I had selected almost exclusively blue-based pictures. I had also completed a monochromatic painting ("Blue 'Tude") and even joined a Red Bubble group for works strictly done in blue. In the original book The Wizard of Oz , the Emerald City looked green to its inhabitants because everyone had to wear green-tinted glasses. I don't want my choices to to be limited as though I am wearing my own version of tinted glasses. So,...