Finished Project...finally!

So, I started the sketch for my friend's new house a long time ago (see the previous post of the preliminary sketches here: http://designartadventure.blogspot.com/2010/05/art-adjustment.html) and I've finally finished it! Good thing too, since I was really kind of pushing the "one year" rule when it comes to giving wedding gifts.

So, here is the original picture of the house:

And here is my finished sketch:

And I framed it up nicely as part of her wedding gift. Something I wanted to mention is my little trick when it comes to gifting artwork. Alot of times, you don't want to give away the original, especially when it took such a long time to complete. So, I have Staples make a few copies of the image (black and white, color, on cardstock, not, etc.) and decide which looks best in the frame and that way I get to keep the original. This is also genius because you can shrink or enlarge the image to fit or lighten and darken it as well.

Once you have multiple copies of the image, you can manipulate them however you can think of! You could make a collage, use acrylic, watercolor, photoshop...the list goes on. Here is one way I manipulated the original image above using watercolor to add a little hint of color: