A Portrait and Some Nursery Paintings

It's been a long time since I've uploaded images of my art, but that's what happens when you have twins! So here we go: 

The first image is an oil painting of my twins at five months old practicing sitting up on their own. I like capturing the moment of them sitting together and practicing a new skill while also leaving the viewer to consider what they might be observing so intently. It definitely takes longer to finish a painting these days, but the boys are certainly helping to provide some inspiration for my art.

The next set of images are acrylic paintings of children's animal illustrations that I created for the twins' nursery. These are not serious works (though truly, I wouldn't categorize most of my art as "serious" anyway) but I had fun thinking of the babies while working on these.

"Turtle and Friend-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Giraffe Family-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Elephant's Red Balloon-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Owls-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Monkey Twins-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

Portraits... of People

I don't have much of a background in portraiture--and by this I mean that I have no training in painting portraits and almost as little experience. Consequently, I've hesitated to choose this as a subject matter for my paintings. I do enjoy painting animal portraits, but here I'm referring to portraits of my own species rather than my beautiful dog Zoe. I can't say that I remember what inspired me to try it out this time, but I actually enjoyed creating these two portraits. This may be the start to a series. We shall see....

"Somnio Mons" oil paint,  2013

"Laetitia Surgit" oil paint,  2013

Photography

I realized that I hadn't posted any photography in a while. I guess with digital photography it doesn't feel like I am creating something with my hands the way it used to when I would develop images in the dark room. However, there is still something to be said for creating a unique image, digitally or otherwise. Here are some landscapes, botanicals and portraits from this summer. Click on any photograph to scroll through photos one at a time.

"Bamboo Eye" 2013

"John Dunn Bridge" 2013

"From the Rio Grande" 2013 

"Petals" 2013

"Rocky Mountain Shadows" 2013

"Storm on the Rio Grande Gorge" 2013

"Animal Sanctuary Tiger" 2013

"Leaf Drops" 2013

"Cactus Stars" 2013

New Dog Portrait: Jackson

I really enjoy painting dog portraits-so here's another one! This is a recent commissioned portrait of a Border Collie mix named Jackson. As Jackson is a black and white dog, I painted him in shades of blue and used warm colors for the background to make the painting more vibrant.

"Jackson" acrylic on canvas, 2012

Here is a pic posted by Jackson's person of the "Jackson" and "Bacchus" paintings hanging together in their home (I did a painting of Bacchus last year):

New Dog Painting

New painting from this winter! This was a commissioned painting for our friend Mike. I actually finished the painting in November, but as it was intended for a surprise Christmas present, I waited to post it until now. This is an acrylic portrait painting of Bacchus the dog. I've painted a lot of cool colored dog portraits, so it was fun to paint a warm colored pup!

"Bacchus" 2011, acrylic on canvas

Holiday Cards!

I decided it would be fun to turn two of my favorite animal paintings into holiday cards! I thought this would be nicer than actually forcing our dog Zoe to wear a Santa hat while I took cheesy holiday photos. Yes, I admit I do like a few cheesy holiday things, including listening to classic Bing Crosby holiday songs.

Blue Zoe Santa

Smiling Pig Santa

Santa Pig Cards

 Blue Zoe Santa Cards

         

  Want a few holiday cards? Check them out in my Etsy Shop

Blue Zoe Series!

We adopted Zoe from the Boulder Humane Society over four years ago. She is my running companion and also one of my favorite painting subjects. She loves having her portrait painted. Well alright, so she's not really aware that she's had her portrait painted nor does she realize that I have turned her into a blue dog, but I don't think she'd mind.

"Blue Zoe #1" 2009,  acrylic on canvas

"Blue Zoe #2" 2010,  acrylic on canvas

 

"Blue Zoe #3" 2011,  acrylic on canvas