Kat Shevchenko, Artist & Illustrator

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen. -Leonardo da Vinci

Here is a shot of an under painting of an almost finished painting called  "A Beautiful Poisen."  I started this one a while back and it is almost finished!  Here you can see the white egg tempera underpainting on the red earth ground.  This is the early first layer stage of the painting that will provide the foundation for the colors.  Sorry for the awful photo w/ the shadow.   

Here is the final painting...finished. For the holiday gala. Title: "The Prisoner" oil/egg tempera on 12 x 12 canvas Depicts a dove, trapped, in a tower-wearing a inquisition styled cap a nod to Goya`s Los Caprichos etchings. Holding a tarot card of The Tower-which has many readings-Oppression,Calamity,Imprisonment...and various other disasters... Event details---> Sa n Antonio Art League Museum: Fundraising silent auction happening at their first annual holiday gala.  The cost of the event is free. The gala will be at the Radisson Hotel, 502 W. Durango Blvd, San Antonio TX (the name of the hotel is changing sometime in Dec.) December 3rd 2009 from 6 to 10pm. Hors d'oeu'vre , beer and wine complementary and cash bar will be available.

Not such a great start to this weekend...had a pipe start to leak in the house and had quite a mess...wish I could go into art mode, had a lot of cleaning to do...then I found a baby rabbit in the pool...had to remove the poor little creature and bury under a tree...among the roots and say a silent prayer to send him back to the Great Rabbit in the sky...have a week to finish my donation canvas for the silent auction for the San Antonio Art League Museum Gala...at least i started on it...apologize for the glare on the pic...I will update with finished pics soon!

I just about finished this watercolor, which was arduous, because of the honeycomb head, which I had to redraw over and over again because I am totally hopeless at straight lines and consistency because as soon as I thought I had the pattern going the shapes would start to get out of whack.  I furthermore appreciate the genius of bees, because each honeycomb is always  perfect and even. My husband says the queen must know calculus, possibly even trig or some other high mathematics...     I used Daniel Smith watercolors, especially lapis lazuli blue for the sky, this is from their Prima Tek series made from earth minerals.  This creates the granulated effects, which are tricky to control sometime but the spontaneity and texture that can be produced is unpredictable but, interesting.