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"

Class Photo — Fall 2024

Here we are—looking good and painting well! Notice our graduating "beginners" in the front row with the still life set-up they all painted. Different perspectives, depending on where they sat, but all of them are skillfully done with individual style. 

Have a very happy holiday season!

Alan Fall Final

 I added more colors and outlined the maple leaves with ink. I also added some value to the wood and branches. I have to remember that it’s just a sketch. 

I wanted to improve on some things I did in my sketchbook so I did these two on Yupo. They’re 12 X 6 and have miles to go before they are finished. 

But it’s a decent start. I really like the color palette in these scenes. I can’t figure out whether to do the line work with something like a Tombow type pen or paint. 

Ss Black Fri Lunch 121424

After a year of medi

cal & senior citizen's challenges, I was able to join the lunchtime traditional group of families & friends at the Walnut room at Macy's on Black Friday, 2024. The solo outing was great. It took me only 45 minutes to be seated at the Walnut bar seating, with my bar seat facing the holiday center of the huge Christmas tree with accessories of a red VW car topped by colorful boxes of gifts of multiple Pdimensions. I tipped the Macy's maitre' D who thoughtfully seated me to have a constant view of the Walnut room centerpiece of the tree, car and gifts while I ate my lunch. When a group of 8  family members was seated as a group in front of my line of vision, I felt the beginning  POV of a Christmas card in my mind's eye. I had 3 sources of inspiration:(1) Decorated Christmas Tree(2) The red VW car loaded with gifts (3) The family of 3 adults & 5 children. It was a challenging but fun experience of the Black Friday Lunch at the Walnut room of the Marshall Fields store now known as Macy'ss

Presence for presents….

 

Did a little more work on the baby & mom painting. I think I’m going to give it to the grandparents . The top painting is of Andrew and Ruth’s  new home. I actually put my iPad on the printer and copied the picture and printed it out.i just wanted a 4x6 image and it was so much easier to lock the screen and print it than try to resize it any other way.

four more

1.  This is a vase on London House that I see watching sunrises.  I like that window thing but I think the vase needs more substance.

These are the IBM windows, need something so that the windows will not look so identical and will have some loose pattern.

This is mainly a practice page.  I like the patterns, especially that olive green under the hard line a little below the middle.

I was watching a doc last night about the Renaissance and I think the Madonnas and saints inspired me. 

 

December 7, 2024 — Elaine O.

As the year winds down, I've been finishing up sketchbooks, using up palette mud, and testing out ideas and techniques.... which is just a way to say I've been dithering around in my sketchbooks. I'm very close to actually finishing my Paris sketchbook. Also, I'm still playing with transparency, color and shine...

...as well as transparent, shiny clear glass...

...and birds, since I found them so intriguing a few weeks ago.

 All this, while circling around more serious ideas.

Alan Fall 8

I

 I took some advice from Pat and Sara and did a wash of green over the whimsical and white scribbles and finished the green cottage. 12 X 14 on 140# coldpress  

Then I upgraded my sketchbook entry looking out my front door. I added a lot of value to the fall colors to make it more vibrant. 5 X 5 on hot press  

I finished the sketch of the Addison Ave. stretch of the lakefront. It’s mostly a pen and ink sketch with a liberal use of maskit and washed with watercolor and highlighted with a white gel pen. 

I tried a screen print from my computer. I had a lot of trouble with the softer reverse images of the reflections. Although it fell far short of my initial plan, I learned some things and it was a lot better at the end of class than it was at the beginning. This is 6 X 12 on 140# coldpress. After posting this I see things I can still fix if I want.

I planned on doing the above on Yupo but I forgot to bring it. So I decided to do a little sketch of our Ed Wood Japanese Maple. I practiced painting maple leaves without much success and tried painting a direct watercolor and ended up with a mess. But the colors were good. If this was a normal painting I’d just throw it away and use the paper as a sacrifice sheet, but it’s in my accordion sketchbook so I have to keep it. I think I figured out a way to save it. Tune in next week to see if I can. It will probably involve some kind of contour drawing. 

four more

I'm still in a yupo daze.  The way it goes down and dries, oh just all those little things that surprise me.  Still fascinated. 

Loved doing the yellow backgrounds in the first two.  I don't subscribe to that less is more theory, but 3 caught my eye and I don't want change anything.  Maybe that reddish splotch in the lower left.  I had a lot of fun with the green background in 4, but what was I thinking of with those bar clouds?  But hey, it's yupo, I can just wash them away.