Chris Fullmer . com

Ivin's Castle Cliff

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:09 -0800

I painted this on Christmas vacation 2011. We were at my parent's house in Ivin's Utah and we were all working on improving our watercolor skills. I also did that quadtych of the tree across the seasons (http://chrisfullmer.com/index.php?showimage=59) the same week.

This is a whimsical play on words. My parents live in a town called Ivins and they have an amazing view of this red mountain from their house. My mother's dad also lived for a short while when he was young with a relative very near Ivins at a placed called Castle Cliff. So this painting is a fun way to combine the two together, into imagined local folklore. After all, the town is named Ivins, and there is a place called castle cliff as miles away. It seems obvious to me that at some point Ivin, the town founder, must have had a massive castle on top of the red cliffs.

Maddie's Castle

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:12 -0800

This is the final watercolor that I did this Christmas as a present for the kids. This is Maddie's. I had done a castle a long time ago that she really liked (I think its posted on this site). So I decided to do another one specially for her. This was the first one of the three I made. I started it and got about 50%-75% of the way done and then put it off for a few weeks. Then once we got away on vacation, I finally was able to find some time to finish it up. It came out pretty nice - I'm pleased with it. I sure had a lot of fun making it. Some day maybe I'll become a millionaire so I can afford frames for these paintings. I was quoted around $100 each, and that was is a 60% off discount. Maybe that's a great price, I don't know. But its too much for me right now :) I'll have to pick up cheap oversized frames and do the matte cutout myself. Then maybe we can actually afford to frame all three of these and get them hung in the kids' room!Chris

The End

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:06 -0800

This Christmas I decided to do a painting for each of the kids. This is the one I did for Linus, called "The End". Its a bit (ok, a LOT) reminiscent of Shel Silverstein's cover to "Where the Sidewalk Ends". But, I supposed its my twist on it. I'm somewhat fascinated by the idea of having a quaint little sign demarcate massively important things, such as the end or edge of the world. Someone already got there and put up a sign. I could go on, but won't. However, little wooden signs often pop up in the things I draw. So don't be surprised to see them often in my work. There is still one more watercolor in this set of 3 that I will post eventually. Chris

Bunny Hole Lane

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:03 -0800

This Christmas I decided to do a painting for each of the kids. I had one half way done by time we left for vacation. So I had to do 2.5 paintings down at Fenna's parents house. It was lots of fun sitting and working on watercolors night after night. This was the second one I made. Fenna helped me decide to do something with a bunny for Amelia, because she likes bunnies. So she got a picture of the bunny's house.

There are 2 more in this series, they'll be posted eventually.

Chris

Tree and the Seasons

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:02 -0800

This was a fun watercolor I did over Christmas vacation at my parents house. My sisters who were there and my mom and my sister's daughter sat around and worked on learning how to watercolor better. It was a lot of fun and this was my first little project I did. This is on a small 5x7 card, so fitting 4 paintings onto it was tight, but its fun to paint small. Then scan it big and look at the detail of how the paint fills and spreads on the paper.

Home Sweet Home

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:05 -0800

Home Sweet Home! Painted this one night while the kids all watercolored too. This is a sketch I come back to time and time again. There is something that I love about this tiny plain home, sitting on a little hill, with a tree next to it, and a quaint sign pointing at the house. I'm never quite sure if its a sad scene or a happy one. Is it early spring, or is the tree just dead? Is the home abandoned or just small and possibly run down? I think in this version its a happy scene. The sky is blue at any rate.

Sketchucation Sketchbook Contribution

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:03 -0800

There is an online forum that I have been a part of for a long time called SketchUcation. It is for the software called Google SketchUp. One of the other moderators had this idea to start a sketchbook and mail it around to all the different moderators or regulars who were interested in participating. So I thought it would be lots of fun. And it was! I was the second person to get the sketchbook. I took waaay longer with it than I should have (sorry everyone!). But it's done and I have mailed it off to the next person. So this sketch was my contribution to the book. I tried to do watercolor, but the paper has some sort of water resistant coating on it I swear, it came out horribly and I thoguht I had ruined the book. I was able to cover up the problems pretty well with the colored pencils though. And it was fun because I had not touched colored pencils for some time (maybe 4 years honestly). I also did a mock up test version first in watercolor, maybe I'll post that too if I can find it. Anyhow, hope you like it,

Chris

Homemade Applesauce Label

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:15 -0800

Hooray!, I had a chance to sit down and make another label, this time obviously for applesauce. I thought it would just be a draft, but I ended up working on it for a while and turning it into something useable. The Golden Delicious apples are sort of hard to see on the trees.... :( But I couldn't put bright red apples, as that would have bugged me forever, knowing that applesauce generally comes from yellowy-green apples. Anyhow, it turned out pretty good. Good enough that I decided to use it. Hope you like it!

Hillside in Fall Creek Canyon, Swan Valley, Idaho

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:41 -0800

On vacation I had a chance to get away and take some photos of the Swan Valley area. This was taken up a canyon on the Fall Creek. It was a beautiful day, and the plants all had on their yellow flowers. The top of the hill is dark lava rock, which really worked nicely with the light yellow and the blue sky.

I might keep posting photos to this blog for a while. Its what I've been working on lately. I also keep many photos on my Flickr site, but I'd like to have some here too so this site does not sit completely stagnant.

A Barn and the Tetons

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:35 -0800

I have not been posting enough! I have done a few things recently, and I have a bunch of things that I did a while ago that I never posted, so maybe its time I get it all together and posted. I'll start with this, since its recent and I can recall the details on it. I was commisioned to do a painting of a barn. So I chose to put it on the Idaho side of the Tetons. My dad's uncle's family (I'm not sure exactly who owns or runs it currently) has a barn near Tetonia. I could not find a photo of their barn, so I found something in similar in the region and used it as a base. Its obviously onthing too fancy, but I tihnk its nice. I've enjoyed painting in this style. It feel happy to me. I hope you think so to,

Chris