Linda Mahoney Art

Last year I completed 2 ice cream cone collages and posted the process on this blog. Since then, I was contacted by Joanne Cole in Bristol, England. She is a school art teacher and her students were beginning an assignment using collage to create ice cream sundaes. She was asking permission to use my collages and information with her students. I readily agreed and asked that she send photos of her students' work. I emailed photos of the different stages on the ice cream cone collages I had done. I had posted them here previously, but for some reason, several of the photos couldn't be viewed later on. Today, I am sharing with you a photo of my new international friend, Jo and the work of her younger students. This first set of collages was done by 11 year olds with the main focus on tone. On my next blog post I will show the sundaes done by the older students, so stay tuned! It is such fun that the internet enables us to connect with people of similar interests all over the wor...

This summer has been the wettest and lushest Cloudcroft summer in my memory. There was a storm during the night and the village was blanketed in a fog when I first went out to walk the dogs this morning. A nippy 40 degrees had us walking at a nice clip. The interesting thing is, that despite the waning of summer, many berries continue to add blooms to their branches. The second blooming of elderberries and the wild strawberries is rather unusual. In addition, many of the wildflowers have continued to exhibit their blossoms. There are hints that the aspen leaves are beginning a subtle change and I suspect the wildflowers will be caught unaware by an early frost. I have seen many cottontails here this summer and watched two of them playing one morning. One was charging and then jumping over the other. That happened several times and then they finally chased each other around and around in a circle. I suspected they were siblings. It makes me smile to remember it now and their appearance...

It's 8 something in the morning and I am on the deck in Cloudcroft. Hummingbirds are feasting on the red and white petunias and their feeders. The sun has just begun to rise above the pines and aspens and the temperature is knocking at 60 degrees. I am in a light sweat suit with a cup of coffee and would think I was in heaven if I didn't have a long list of things to do. There are numerous illustrations waiting to appear and it seems the employers all finally decide what they want at the same time. I'm thankful for the work. Yesterday, I took some time out to work on the painting above. It's done in colored pencil. I have been trying to figure out a way to work in a different technique. I like how it turned out, but the paper is translucent and keeps the whites from looking as bright as I'd like. I will continue to work in this vein to see if I can duplicate the style on my fav Stonehenge paper. I will be doing a companion piece to this one of hollyhocks. Let me k...

Virtually all of my illustrations begin as rough hand-drawn images in graphite pencil (black and white or grayscale). Some employers want black and white images only. When that is the case, I continue by cleaning up the drawing and shading it in pencil. If the employer wants line drawings only, I transfer the outline for the finished drawing and then go over it with ink. For colored illustrations, I continue with the graphite and use water color markers, colored pencil, acrylics or gouache to color the images. After that, I scan them in and usually tweak them a little more in Photoshop. Here are a couple of black and white images done for fantasy type illustrations. Hold tight to your dreams ~ Linda

Illustrations have been keeping me busy. I'm including some samples of just a few of the many I've been working on recently. Most of them have been for children's books. Some are in color, like the Taco Dog (shown above gobbling Santa's tamales). Some have a message like Petula Pelican, who struggles for women's rights issues. Part of the fun of it all is becoming "acquainted" (at least via the internet) with people from all over the world. Petula's author is a wonderful, 85-year- young woman who lives in Kansas and has al- ready published several other books. She is a wealth of knowledge regarding homeopathic remedies and is an inspirational lay minister as well. I haven't been blogging in a while because of all the other activities. Stay tuned for more illustration samples to follow. All the best ~ Linda

Have you missed me? I have been busy, busy, busy doing illustrations recently. It is fun, but a LOT of work and I have been putting in long hours. Part of that is my own tendency toward perfectionism. One of the most fun jobs I have been working on is a children's book about a frog who lives in the bayou of Louisiana and dreams of being a princess. I have made a new friend with the author and am stretching my skills back to illustration which is where I started as a professional artist many years ago. So many things have changed since then with the arrival of computers in the world of art and they continue to expand. The Photoshop images that were state of the art a few years ago are giving way to Vector images which can be resized without distortion. I still start all my illustrations with hand drawn images, and I am hoping there will always be a place for that. There is just something about the feel of the artist's hand in that artwork compared to digitally created work. Mayb...

(You can click on the photo for a larger version of the picture.) This colored pencil painting was actually finished a week ago, but I have been waiting for a decent day to get a photograph of it. I prefer to take photos of the artwork outdoors but ever since finishing it has been very dark and overcast or the wind has been blowing like crazy. Today there was nice light and less wind, so I took this outside and got a photo of it. Hope you enjoy! I'm already at work on redwing blackbirds with roses. I've managed to get some good shots of the Eastern bluebirds this past week, so they will be appearing soon, too. I was able to work outdoors on this painting several days and enjoyed the great natural light and pleasant weather. All the best! Linda