the little match girl

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

portrait of a blond little girl

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

bearded man sketch 2

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

bearded man sketch

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

sketch of man with crazy facial hair

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

the bride's daughter and groom's son from a previous relationship

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

lumberjack bear - painted

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

I spent yesterday painting the lumberjack bear. I tried to use a different technique but by the end I wasn't happy with my piece. I reworked my sketch this morning and spent the rest of the day painting it.

lumberjack bear process

Back in September, I was sketching bears because I wanted to draw a bear as a lumberjack. I was back at it today and settled on this one:



Here's some of my process sketches:




©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

gdansk, poland

highlights of the trip:

• walking through the beautiful, colorful, historic old town
• dragon head water spouts
• tons of red brick
• stopping at a cute cafe to warm up with mulled wine
• eating at a Polish milk bar. Amazing.
• Malbork Castle
• learning about Polish culture and history from our wonderful hosts
• Polish sausage
• Polish bread
• seeing an actual bomb shelter
• browsing Polish children's books and eventually purchasing one with funky ink illustrations
• finally getting a matryoshka doll after wanting one since I was a little girl
• learning how to make zurek (Polish soup) and then enjoying it.




















Malbork Castle - the largest red brick castle in the world:









monument to the striking ship yard workers - I love how the hands come down the side:








this church is 1000 years old - check out how crooked the walls are in the next photo:

we're back

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

This is just a quick post to say that we have returned from Poland and had a fantastic time. I'll post some photos and such later.

happy (belated) halloween

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli