Three more bears

Making their images bigger because I am moving on to 9x12.  This baby bear started of as completely non representative and I kept it that way.

Mama bear started out as non rep but that bottom center shape kept getting stronger and I turned it into a yucca plant of maybe seaweed.  I like it but I have this nagging fear that it looks like something that was bought at a starving artists show to hang over the sofa in their Arizona-themed front room.

 And papa bear has started out from a photo of a tomato flower.  I think I have most of the paint in the right places now I just need that yupo nudge to contort it.

December 28, 2024 — Elaine O.

I've added the final touches to my still life and I'm really happy with it. The colors are a bit more lively in person than on screen, but that seems to happen a lot. Anyway, I considered a complementary cloth but I really liked the swaths of warm colors surrounding the cool bowls and grounded by the warm black. 

9" x 12"

I'm intrigued enough to try it again but with a blue cloth. Here's the start.

And while I was waiting for a layer to dry, I did a quick blind contour and found a different composition and different colors that I liked. I think a) this still life series isn't over yet, and b) I need to make a run to the fruit store!

Will Xmas never end???

 

I long to get out of the kitchen and back to some semblance of a routine!  This hectic painting reflects my brain and is the only thing I’ve done in the past week (or has it been two?) there was a box full of gift bags, ribbons and crumpled tissue  paper just to the left of me, so I attempted to capture the color and chaos. Particularly the smoothed out previously crumpled tissue paper…I tried to capture all the facets with brushstrokes…but when I came back to the painting I decided it needed sketching to sort out all the shapes. Whether it works or not doesn’t really matter as much as having 30 minutes to sit and paint. My reward for all this Xmas cooking was going to the AIC to see the Paula M Becker paintings. Two of my favorites below…I’m going to paint Quinn and Nora in these poses! Go see it, it ends Jan 12. And see the basket weaving exhibit downstairs— it’s phenomenal!

 Reflects my brain

Stand Up Painting Was A Let Down

 This was started on my last day at Truman. At first, it seemed like painting while standing (sitting was impossible) would be freeing and I’d be loose but loose turned to heavy.  Pretending to be an oil painter didn’t work … happy to be done with it. 

Alan Winter 1

 I took this idea out of my sketchbook and painted a Yupo version. It’s 6 X 12 and I think I’ll try an even larger version later. 

This one is trickier so I’ll show a little timeline to show what went wrong. Here’s my reference photo.  I liked the sparseness and cold of the Lake Michigan shoreline.

The version in my sketchbook captured that feeling. 

In the Yupo version I got carried away drawing trees and forgot what I was supposed to be painting. It’s fun for me to make trees but that wasn’t the main reason to paint this. I tried adding more branches but that made it even worse. And you can’t wipe ink off Yupo like watercolor so I was stuck with it. Where the foreground in the grain elevator painting gave it a sense of place, it is wrong here. Also lost the feeling of big mama tree with little offspring that I was trying to depict. Now it’s just a boring late autumn picture. I’ll try again later but I have other things I want to try now. 

December 21, 2024 — Elaine O.

Still life—who knew inanimate objects could be so interesting? Anyway, I've been working along and here's where I am now, with only a few bits to go. I do have some thoughts—about the painting and the process—but I'll wait until I'm actually finished to share them as they may change.

9"x 12"

Meanwhile, I've (finally) finished my Paris sketchbook. 60 pages of memories!

4" x 5.5"

Merry Christmas one and all!

Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear

This was going to be a straight non-representative painting but all of a sudden, quite by accident, those 'trees' appeared in the upper left and I really liked them so I tried to make the rest of the painting a forest with that big old cliff on the right, but doing so was like work compared to the fun of just slopping around paint as the mood hits me.

This one was pure slopping around and it was a lot of fun.  Called it quits when I noticed I was beginning to tidy things up.  

Just to round up my experience I  decided to do one with an image in mind right from the beginning, which I didn't think I would like much because it would not be so free, but it was nice having a skeleton to hang my improvisations on.  

Those 'stripes' on the bottom are more defined in the actual painting, but now that I see the photo I can see that something needs to be done with them.

Peace on Earth….

 Here’s the sum of my efforts for the past week art wise. Not crazy about the narrow mat on the baby, but I just didn’t want to go too big on the frame…the recipients don’t have a lot of open wall space….Wish I could photograph without shadows. Both are 8 x 10 frames. Merry Xmas to all!

Merry Christmas to all

My first version of this was too tidy, order had triumphed and it was, well, boring.  I took a wet brush to it and brought chaos back and was pleased, bit then I went back and tidied up a few things.  Too many things, boring order had returned. so I wet my brush again and had at it and didn't do any tidying afterwards.

This an attempt at an abstract that was going nowhere.

So I decided to wash it off and start anew, but halfway through that process I liked the way it looked and stopped then and there.

This was almost done, mostly just added texture to that background.

And Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

 

December 14, 2024 — Elaine O.

I've been concentrating on my "Paris Sketchbook" of late and am excited to say I'm on the last few pages and will definitely probably finish before the end of the year. Meanwhile, I've been wondering why I haven't done more still life paintings. In fact, why I don't do a series of them. So, here's the beginning of a still life of clementines spilling out of a stack of rice bowls.

9" x 12"