Meet Elaine!

Time for the third installment in our fabled "Meet the Artist" series, where we take a few moments to learn more about each of us—about what inspires us, what we like to paint and how we like to paint it ... or maybe just some fun facts.

Today, it's all about Elaine—Elaine O., that is. Why the distinction? Oddly enough, Elaine seems to have been our most popular watercolor name (in case this ever comes up in a trivia contest). We've had original Elaine, Elaine T., Elaine B., and Elaine O., the hero of today's story. With that understood, let's get started. We have a lot of ground to cover since Elaine's been painting for over 15 years—about five years less than Ken, give or take. She started as a rank beginner and actually brought in one of her first exercises...the famed egg.

 

But Elaine structured her story a little differently. Rather than a chronological history, she grouped her paintings by type, with especial emphasis on paintings that were milestones or breakthrough paintings for her. Above, for instance, are some of her earliest paintings. She started with still life studies and developed an interest in landscapes. She took her paints along on a vacation in Wisconsin, where she made an interesting discovery—for her, value is as important as color. Now, her paintings always have contrast, as in the small painting shown below....still one of her favorites.

 

Throughout the years, Elaine revisited the still life, often choosing quirky subjects like a toy dinosaur or a simple roll of masking tape. She couldn't resist adding Ken to the background of a class still life and even memorialized a favorite car.

Elaine also has a fascination with flowers, returning to them over and over. She's painted sunflowers, tulips, poinsettia, amaryllis and roses...

.... making breakthroughs with the petunias above and the daffodils below, where she felt she really captured the airy delicacy of the petals.

 

But her favorite subjects are architecture....

 

.... and vacations—often combining those two interests with people (usually her long-suffering husband who can be seen posing gamely in San Francisco, London, and Washington DC).

Interestingly enough, while Elaine's architectural paintings tend to include large stretches of stone or brick, they are hardly boring or monochromatic—thanks to complementary colors! The grays, in particular, tend to be a rich blend of colors (usually only two) that vibrate slightly from one color to the other, adding life and interest. Look at the stonework above and you'll see red and green, blue and orange, blue and red, and yellow and purple. In fact, Elaine's so enamored of grey, she spent a season doing a study of greys (below). Each of the combinations below include only two colors.

Elaine is also our most fearless experimenter, as you can see below. She's tried Yupo, tinted and masa papers, clayboard and canvas. She's used a variety of media, along with watercolor ground and gesso; and she has an assortment of strange and wonderful colors in tube, pencil and brick form.

Yet for all of this, Elaine is a minimalist at heart. From the beginning, she's tended to choose a limited palette. Many of her paintings have as few as two colors and rarely more than six, no matter how colorful they may be. Which leads us to another set of breakthrough paintings....the Buddhas.

The top left postcard was a happy accident—the result of a combination of circumstances while she was testing a set of six watercolors (two each yellow, red and blue). The lovely blending was a result of her impatience, a rainy day and a not-very-precious sketch. The room was damp and the paint refused to dry. So Elaine kept painting, even though the previous wash wasn't quite dry. She loved the glowing results! She only used three paints in that painting. The bottom painting used all six colors. And the gold Buddha also uses those six colors—no, there is not even a touch of glitter.

And so Elaine has used that technique and those colors for her latest paintings—people. Intrigued by people's faces, she has returned to portraits with a new boldness. Look how much livelier the re-worked portrait is...

....which brings us to her current series, as Elaine paints childhood memories and sweet faces.

 

So what have we noticed about Elaine?

• Elaine is our most curious experimenter. She is willing to try anything....papers, paints, styles.... but strangely enough, she's also our truest minimalist. She tends to use one brush (a #12 round) almost exclusively. Her palette starts with a "basic six" and has expanded to include three additional pairs of her favorite complementary colors. She'll add a new color or two, but often, she uses as few as two or three colors for an entire painting. That's a lot of variety from very few paints!
• She returns to the same favorite genres over the years—landscapes, still life, people and places. But each time, she brings something new and different to the painting.
• Like many of us, Elaine paints in series, but her series can span years and are often not consecutive (witness what has turned into the "My Travels with Dave" series). 
• And Elaine gets a great deal of mileage from her vacations! She's gone to the same place in Wisconsin for years and always finds something new to paint. Not to mention what happens when she travels further afield. We've seen series from NY, San Francisco, Washington DC and London. We can't wait to see her take on Paris!

Fascinating, wasn't it? For all the different subjects and experiments, you can always identify each of us by our style, can't you? But the fun doesn't stop here.

Join us next week for an interesting juxtaposition. After all the architecture, stone, and hard edges, we'll return to some quintessential watercolor—flowers, trees and nature, all painted in soft colors and fluid washes. Come back then. You'll be glad you did! And, of course, keep watching this space for the chance to meet us all.