Still Feeling Fallish…

..

 Started this in class and worked on it at home last night, and I like it. It’s photographing lighter than it actually is, but I like the effect of the light from below. I always include Steve’s building b/c it is classic Chicago 8-flat with a lot of interesting decorative touches that I always end up leaving out. I’m going to have hire Elaine to paint it to do it justice….

I painted two versions of this a million years ago. The bottom one is the one I recently repainted, muting the colors, etc. it looked much more like the top one before being repainted….oh, and aren’t they nicely photographed… no curling edges….

fleurs dans un vase

This is what Vuillard painted and what I am sort of basing my painting on in a very loose way.

 And here is where I am at this Sunday morning.  Well I feel a little better about it than I did Saturday.

So who is up for the ten minute painting from an image that you haven't seen before?  9:15 Saturday morning?

Elaine O. — October 29, 2022

I'm back to my panoramic paper, painting something soft and sweet—a sprig of cherry blossoms against a clear spring sky. Sort of a palate cleanser after chronicling all the senseless destruction across the street. Once again, this is something that looks deceptively simple, but is taking more time and concentration than expected. We'll see what happens once I add in the darks.

18" x 6"

SS: Enhanced You!10.29.22

 Today's painting is an enhanced painting of my mom done one year ago. Almost a year ago, I presented her face with deep seated lines & pronounced shadows. During last year showtime, the earlier painting had mixed reviews. I let the painting sat for a while for almost a year. Today, on my late mom's birthday, I reworked the original painting by toning the deep lines & minimized the shading, then emphasized the eyes, touched up the hair color. Thus, after Today's Showtime,  I am happy to remember her with her gentle smile & the essence of her lovely loving personality! May She Rest in Peace!

‘Maters and peaches

I’ve decided to go back to try some still lifes. After seeing Cezanne’s still lifes and reviewing my own I decided to try some more. I have a program on my desktop that goes through my photos and displays them randomly on the screen. I noticed that every time one of my still lifes came up I really liked them. 

The first one is a Yupo painting I did after a visit to the orchard in Michigan where we bought tomatoes and peaches. Not a combination you usually see.

The next one is a combination of a Cezanne still life, one from Chris Stebley and one of my own. I’m not happy with the composition. I feel that the squashes and the candle should be bigger and the candle should be placed forward. The grapes are too small. I could spend more time on it but it would never satisfy me because the structure will always be wrong. I’ll try again later. 

 

I was in Michigan last week during this glorious fall.  It made me pause the still lifes to do some landscapes.  I started this view of the lake at sunset.  It looks like a winter scene now but red, oranges, and golds are coming.

 

SS: Apple Picker in Blue Pink

 Apple Picking is an annual tradition of my extended family here in Chicago. During our first year as an immigrant couple, my husband & I  joined the maternal side of family for a day of Apple Picking ( 2 hours drive to Apple Orchards) , tailgate picnicking and family group photo shoot, that first weekend! At that time, we were the youngest couple of our Apple pickers group. The tradition endured all thru the years! One time,we even experienced a harvest of Apple drought or shortage by picking apples not from the trees but from pails or metal containers provided by Orchard owners. Now @ 2022, we are one of  the oldest couple or elders of our clan. Other pickers have died, have gotten sick, have moved out of town or have retired back to PH. Apples are now costing $45 a bushel ( roughly $1 per apple).  Edward's Orchards are now charging $200 per picnic site! We did not pay!Truthfully, we are more concerned about the annual group photo shoot! The Younger generation now are organizing & calling the shots! We even have color codes for each year. Last year, was pink shirts or jackets. This year, was green! So most All arrived in Olive Green! This week's painting was inspired by my organizing niece in her pink shirt with blue of last year! The annual tradition is not about the Apple, but about the Family picture!

Moody stuff…

 Not sure if this is finished or not…certainly falls into the high drama category…

Here’s another high drama candidate.I always think these window shots  are a good idea, but never really like them— too much going on. But this is still a work in progress..

This is a painting from years ago that I just “touched up”… it had a lot of brighter colors in it and I toned them all down. Now it looks kinda spooky…

I’m tryi

Elaine O.—October 22, 2022

This is becoming a series! Here's the formerly green parkway—now deforested and a scar upon the earth. All the benefits the trees brought are gone, leaving nothing but raw stumps and dirt.

The Waste Land     9"x12"

This whole series has got me thinking about ugliness and art. I feel compelled to document this devastation, as I'm strangely affected by it. But is there any value beyond the therapeutic? On the one hand, who wants to dwell on deliberate cruelty? On the other hand, artists have long produced works like Guernica and Gassed. Something to think about.....

Done

 A long time coming.  I first began this on September 18.  Thought I was done except for a few details when I brought it in Saturday morning, but then my panel of experts wanted something to counter or enhance those little purple darts between the petals.  No, I thought it is looking pretty good as it is, why risk it and besides I kind of liked the imbalance.

So I started on a bee, but there was also a bee put under my bonnet, and then I thought why not not ultramarine because it is similar to and on the blue side of purple and like purple is not seen anywhere else in the painting?  I blotted out the green in that last row of sepals and filled them with ultramarine and I think it worked out well.

SS: Live Model Exercise Shown

 St. Greg Cultural Center has introduced a once a month, Saturday afternoon figure drawing class at the 3rd floor of Parish Center, managed by new artist in residence: Sara Crow. The hitch: 3rd floor, no elevator & models are " clothed", lots of fabrics, no nudes. Any media @ $5 per artist! Shown are 2 figure drawing exercises: one 10 minute & one 1 hour! Strangely, the shorter exercise has more drama in its simplicity!

Julia Pryst: Object Still Life

 Hello! This is Susan uploading the still life of our emerging artist: Julia Pryst! Please feel free to comment! Please get well soon: Julia! Email: Libby.Pryst@gmail.com!

#13 On With Cezanne and That’s All Folks

 Watching this guy I decided he must be an artist. He was such an intense observer, backtracking to look at paintings more than once and then really studying them. 

 

Old and new

 I got the news that one of my favorite Mississippi bar singers passed away. I did this Yupo portrait of him and always intended to give it to the bar owner as a memory. Now I can’t find him but I did dig this out of my files. I had no photo of it. But now I do. 

Now for something completely different. I found this sweet black and white picture of mother and child that I always wanted to paint. 

Fountain Faces Forest

 The painting was inspired by photos of my husband and myself combined in a set of 2 levels. When I presented the beginnings of faces during the Showtime segment a long time ago Elaine T commented that these could be a Crown fountain like scenery. So when I worked on it during our latest class session this week, I refinished the faces and tried to recreate a downtown photo opportunity of wet children playing at Crown which was one of my early watercolors which was bought by a female doctor, one of patrons of a 2010 Consular exhibit!. She wanted a Watercolor painting for her bedroom. I could not recreate the wet and frolicking children in front of the spouting water faces. So I placed  the giant wet faces among trees & reimagined the man's face on an elevated level and the woman's face on the lower level. The female's eyes anticipated the action! The water from the male's mouth flows down to combine with the water from the female's face  also flowing to create a pool of water in the foreground. The wet children almost disappeared from the picture! It is a fun  Saturday

painting, no pressure, just going with the flow!

 

Trees, trees, trees….

 Inspired by Elaine’s pastoral panting, I dug out my landscape format tablet and did something complete different.

I also did a couple of studies of this tree across the street from my house.I was trying to decide on whether to include the other tree or to use the landscape format again.

In the end, I did neither, choosing instead to just focus on the one tree. Simplifying the composition puts a lot of pressure on one element in the painting, but maybe that’s where I should focus my attention. Does anyone else think like this while they’re painting? Or what do you think about?

still evolving

 I prefer to think of the background as terrazzo rather than particle board.  I am thinking of it as one of those mottled backgrounds, but with the hard edged foreground it needed a little grit to keep the pace. But now changes will have to be made in the petals.  That's okay, I have nothing but time.

Elaine O. — October 15, 2022

Making progress on this, the last in the series. As you may notice, I've gotten the background in, framing the critical part of the painting. Next step, actually doing it—it's like putting off the eyes in a portrait because you're afraid to mess everything up. Next week for sure!

 

The Waste Land    9" x 12"

Past Meets Present…

 I drew this self portrait back in 2016 and found it last week when I was going thru old art stuff. I started painting it in last weeks class, using a current photo of myself for color reference. I’ve been working on it this week at home. Not sure if it’s done, but I’ve got to sit with it a while…

Slowly evolving

 

Was in DC a couple weeks ago, cataract surgery last week, and Indianapolis this week.  Just not getting much done.  If you tip it on its side it could well be a flambe desert of some kind.

Elaine O. — October 8, 2022

I've been trying something different this week—working on two paintings at the same time. While one dries, I work on the other. This is another "Road to Decatur" painting; besides being well suited to my panoramic paper, it has a peaceful and bucolic, mid-America feeling. It's nearly finished.

6" x 18"

And now for something completely different. Back to the "Destruction" series, this is a view of the devastation left in the wake of the Great Tree Massacre of June 23, 2022. As of now, it's the last one planned in the series, but who knows what could happen next?

9" x 12"

 

I'm not sure if I'm just not used to multitask-painting or if these two subjects are just too different in feeling, but I'm still testing this "two at the same time" approach. 

Still dunno

 Feel a little more freedom now that I have abandoned all thought that it is a sunflower.  Thinking of reading up on scallops.

Elaine O. — October 1, 2022

As promised, I chose a softer,  warmer, sweeter subject this week—a plush teddy bear. Yet, I can't help but let a vestige of the dark side creep in. One fall day, I opened my garage door to this sight. I knew I had to paint it one day...and here it is.

9" x 12"

Looks rather like a Viking funeral, doesn't it?

SS: A Sun of Universal Colors

 A long time ago, I analyzed why the beauty queen title eluded me when I have a melange of various ethnic lineage in my veins. On my mom's side, I have Chinese entrepreneurs medical authority on her side. On my father's side, I shared the Hispanic adventurous analytical minds! Both sides have artistic skills. I am taller than most Asian pacific islander women & I have a face that would be a female representation of various nations. I used to  have difficulty in painting my likeness before. When I accepted that my nose is larger and broader than other noses, I slowly gained confidence in painting myself. No more beauty queen aspirations! Bring on the lines and shadows! I love to wear hats & I still have long black hair. Since it is boring to paint my blouse a monotonous red, I decided to have fun with lots of shapes & colors! And my Cousin Henry, from opposite part of the universe who keeps in touch with me thru Instagram, would comment again " you look like PM Golda Meir". You be the judge! We are all connected!