ANNE LEUCK STUDIO

Sketchbook

Art Re-Treat

Inspiring Artists &..., My Candy Colored World, Process, Sketchbook, TravelAnne Leuck3 Comments

Back from an amazing art retreat weekend in rural Wisconsin with Rachel and Erica ..and remotely our dear friend Lois Keller. 

Rachel started this amazing new series of paintings and created several lovely water colors...

Picture 33

Picture 33

Erica pulled this one out of her hat...this large piece consists of 10 separate panels:

Picture 29

Picture 29

Lois shipped us a box of treasures, included for each of us was a lovely drawing (this is the one she sent for me) with sentiments and her wishes for each of us and our creative lives for 2008.

And these are some of my pieces - I did paintings on cardboard:

Picture 32

Picture 32

These 3 women have impacted my life and art in so many ways, we have a very magical connection that has only strengthened over the last 7+ years. I'd love to share more as so many wonderful things transpired...but I'll just have to leave you with these snippets since I'm scrambling to get myself and things together before I leave Wednesdayfor my trip up to Minneapolis for the Uptown Art Fair. Not an easything since I've had a non-stop whirl wind of fun, adventure and travel over the last few weeks. I feel so lucky to be taking all these trips and for the chance to reconnect with so many wonderful friends and family.

Illustration Friday - CHOOSE

Illustration Friday, SketchbookAnne Leuck7 Comments
Ilffeb_4

Ilffeb_4

Illustration Friday Word of the Week: CHOOSE

Back in November we went mattress shopping for a King Size Bed...it was not as hard to CHOOSE as we thought it would be. It was a very Goldilocks-like experience. We used Yelp.com to find the the stores with the best deals, and we did!

We had been wanting a king bed since adopting Alice back in 2004 so there was room for everyone....of course now that we have it: Izzy refuses to join us...she is so stubborn in her old age!

PS...This image is a scanned page from my sketchbook that I inverted with Photoshop.

17 Years Ago Today....

My Candy Colored World, SketchbookAnne Leuck1 Comment

Seventeen years ago today, I moved to Chicago. 1990, age 23, no job, knew 2 people, none close friends, with the exception of an x-boyfriend but that didn't count except that he did introduce me to Rich...so I guess that does count! My plan was to stay 1-2 years and then move out to the west coast. I was so scared but also very excited to finally be in a BIG city. I was so excited to live only blocks from Lake Michigan (never mind that I was too naive to know how edgy my neighborhood was back then) Rogers Park area Kenmore & Granville. I was filled with a feeling of adventure not knowing what great things...and not so great things, awaited. My 10 day stint at an art foundry (I thought this was going to be my dream job)...left me frustrated and sad, the man I worked for told me "you are never going to make it in Chicago". So I"m a little emotional...so what, I'M STILL HERE. I think it just added to my resolve to find my own way. Then I became miss interviewee and corporate temp...I had to buy a suit (I didn't even own a skirt) and start wearing panty hose and heels - killer for a gal fresh out of art school. I found a job by December as a convention and meeting planning assistant. I worked there for 6 years. None that I regret in retrospect as it later proved to be invaluable to running my own business. Which I guess I better get back to...Happy Anniversary to me!

08.18.07

SketchbookAnne Leuck1 Comment

Have not painted in quite some time, but I continue to fill my sketch book on a somewhat daily basis. My goal is one page per day but as you can see here, the 17th & 18th ended up on one page and at times if life is really crazy I'll have up to a week of dates on one page but alas every day accounted for. So I'll try to share more sketchbook during my 'dry spells' = no wet paint.

I have also been sketching a lot digitally on my Cintiq doing prep work for pet portraits, design work for licensing and (all day today) working on illustrations for the Paws LA Pet ARt 9 invitation and a poster for Chicago Animal Care & Control's Fall Adoption Event.

Hopefully I'll be ready to paint tomorrow as I have several commissions to start - that's also about the time new things develop down in my studio. Yesterday I primed a whole new slew of wood cabinet doors so I am excited to slather some GOLDEN acrylics onto them as well. It's hard to remember that I need incubation time before I actually produce, because when I do produce it's usually a lot at one time. Instead I tend to just beat myself up for not painting often enough.

Emergency!

Illustration Friday, SketchbookAnne Leuck4 Comments

Illustration Friday

Theme = EMERGENCY

Today I digitally colored this drawing from my sketchbook created on August 15, 2001-I guess it's fitting that it's August 15th today as well. There was a fire in our neighborhood, a little girl went racing down our street on her bike yelling "Fire Fire Everywhere - Armitage & Milwaukee!" of course we had to go check it out,we met lots of other interesting late night spectators...lots of dogs too. There was not 'fire, fire everywhere' - just one building, but fairly large and the intersection of Western, Milwaukee and Armitage was blocked off so it was a big deal.