Authentic hotsell and original illustration titled, “Community Mailbox.”

This is an authentic and original illustration titled, “Community Mailbox.” You are viewing a colorful, textured and detailed property of a local community mailbox located on the residential property in the artist's (myself) neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland. The site is popular in the community, offering free books to passerby's who like a good read for all ages. Children and parents especially gravitate to this bright and colorful wooden structured mailbox. If you look closely you will see the dominant feature, the centralized box, with open door, is decorated with other objects on the top. A bird box and lamp in which was intentionally illustrated “abstract,” in appearance resembling a black and white chair sitting atop the mailbox. The books on the interior of the box are slanted, narrow, with different heights and space in between. The site the original photograph was taken was from street level, focusing my lens directly toward the open mailbox surrounded by the other elements within. The actual color of the house is different than how you see it in this illustration. When working on this illustration I wanted to recreate the scene with a combination of abstract and surreal. Although the structure of the background house appears simple in color and design, the architecture of the entire house is impressive with a pleasant landscape design. For years, this property, amongst others in the community, offers free books and books to share, part of an organization called “FreeLibrary.Org.” If your visiting this site for the first time and would like to familiarize yourself with my work, I highly recommend reading through detailed description of each illustration. This particular one is unique and not part of a series. During a recent neighborhood stroll, and personally visiting this house's “neighborhood friendly,” community mailbox to pick our books for family. My observation of the front yard and landscape surrounding is that it is an older style house that remains in good condition. The background color that I painted is not exactly the same as the original house exterior noticeably seen in my original photograpgh. The lush greenery and healthy tall trees erect on either side of the property pleasantly decorate the landscape, providing shade and privacy. Having taken this photograpgh closer to sundown, I captured the subject with darker skies, showing the interior house night lights illumination through the door windows. As you can see, the mailbox is bright and colorful with an open blue door, free books inside positioned slanted and upward. When working on this illustration, I especially liked painting the dominant feature, the mailbox, followed by tiny objects (one abstract) positioned directly above the community box. Having previously written about these features, a friendly reminder, one object is a wooden bird house, and the other intentionally painted different than how it's seen in “real time.” I then designed the light post abstract. I always like to leave it up to the imagination of the reader, buyer and viewer, how to interpret the elements within. One's interpretation could very well be that the abstract light lamp next to the birdhouse appears to resemble a small black and white chair atop a mailbox. Phase one was the initial graphite sketch. On quality mixed media and graphite, I hotsell sketched the centralized dominant feature (the mailbox) first and foremost, prior to the other elements within. I then proceeded to sketch the trees, the background house walls, the objects decorating the mailbox and natural elements in the yard such as the landscape debris, rocks, grass, soil, and vines, surrounding the mailbox noticeably seen on the property. Phase two was the transition to color. With blue, yellow, red, white, black, brown, pink, green and gold tones, I blended and shaded over phase one. This phase always helps visually guide my attention to focus on the details within in order to transition to the final phase. In many of my pieces, there are multiple objects to focus on its easier to identify and distinguish them once color is applied. If your not familiar with my work, you will learn I always appreciated focusing on varied elements within providing clear illustrative visual prospective of subject source. Phase three was the application of acrylic paint. With fine brushes and being mindful of all the powerful color and textured prominent in the image, I intentionally focused on appropriate color and depth perception. The darker hours of the day provoked a gentle glow through the glass windows, leaving one feeling a sense of peace, familiarity and common local architectural views. I also intentionally painted the community box larger in size than the actual box and objects above different in appearance than how it's seen in “real time.” Upon completion I sprayed it with clear acrylic sealant to prevent any damage or “bleeding of the colors.” The authentic and original illustration is available for purchase in print. This would make for an ideal housewarming gift or simply be a nice addition to an existing collection. Please enjoy. Jessica Ahmadi