Elaine O.—January 9, 2021

I've added the red door...smack dab in the middle of the painting, too. I know that's not the best, compositionally, but it works for me.

Red Door        11"x8"

I haven't done much this week. But I'm still on a yellow kick, it seems. And I've been cleaning and clearing out the "vase" shelf in my hutch. While they were out, I used them as models to play with light...

9"x12"

...and just document my days in my quarantine sketchbook.

approx. 4.5" sq.

I also got out for a bit and took my sketchbook. Okay, this is a very challenging space, and my time was cut short, but the Covid lockdown seems to have taken its toll on my urban sketching!

 

8"x5.5"

raven 3

 I wasn't sure where to go with the raven so I started on the background.  When I first put in those two horizontal bands of gee gaws they looked like the weren't attached to the building, like they were somehow in front of it hanging in space,  I put those vertical things along the piers to attach it to the building, and noticing the lacy design of them realized that I could put a lacy pattern into the raven/

So see if you just give it a chance your painting will tell you what to do.

Moving Day: Procession of Artifacts from St. Greg Church to St. Ita Church

 September 3, 2020 was the Merger of St. Greg Church with St. Ita & St. Thom. Parishioners attended the final mass at St. Greg to mark the end of SGC as an stand alone parish. We could still attend weekend & holiday masses at SGC but the management & the Franciscan priests are based at St. Ita at the corner of Catalpa & Broadway. Sept. 3 was also the final mass of Fr. Paul Wachdorf, parish priest of SGC for 15 years. After the final mass that afternoon, Fr. Paul announced  that selected artifacts of SGC would be brought to St. Ita Church by him & SGC parishioners as a symbolic gesture of the merger. The artifacts selected were the icon of St. Gregory,  books on the history, architecture & the parishioners data & a sacred relic. After the procession from SGC to St. Ita, a welcome mass was celebrated at St. Ita. I was lucky enough to be at corner Ashland & Catalpa when the Procession started & I took a photo of the loss of my house of worship as a stand alone church. It provided a closure to my heartache & an inspiration to today's art work. I showed the SGC parishioners led by Fr.Paul carrying various artifacts walking in the late afternoon at Catalpa. To symbolize the church, I painted SGC tower, the icon of St. Greg, the trees sheltering the procession & the icon of St. Ita, the destination church. Truly, the year of 2020 is a test of endurance! Keep the Faith! Happy Painting all!

elaine t - Arctic fox

 I managed to get the brushes out yesterday, and decided to let the paper do most of the work in the painting. That was fun; I think I'll try a painting of fog, and one of the rimefrost on my sister's evergreens. It's interesting to just work on shadows, and add only a few tints to the light areas.

I painted this pic of my granddaughter, Jillian, but I didn't like the quality of it.  Everything was in the right place but it wasn't art.  On140 #.

         So I painted this one on Yupo and, while a bit rough, I liked it a lot better.
 

Then I tried a contour drawing on shitty paper and liked it.  Just a quick sketch in my sketch book that will be resigned to the back of the closet.

Then I tried a quick self portrait on the bad paper and didn't like it.  I tried to fix it but the paper was so bad that it went bad after the tiniest bit of scrubbing.  There are compositional problems too but I'm not going to attempt to fix it. If you look closely you will see the damage to the paper that is similar to the skin damage on my head.

So then I went back to a better quality sketchbook with 140 # paper and painted my front room.  I'm inspired by Sara's interiors.  I kind of liked the tree and little else, but it was a quick sketch and painting and I learned a little something too.

So then I tried a tool called the Lucy which mimics what the old masters used.  I am not an old master and I had a very difficult time using it.  I think it will be helpful under certain conditions.  But I did this in the good sketchbook after manipulating the image from the Lucy projection.  Also a very quick sketch and painting.

History of Cocktails

I haven’t been painting a lot because I’m too busy sampling my experiments (kidding).  I thought I would try a chronological post. So far it hasn’t been easy but I’ll try again. All are on 140# coldpress except where noted. 

Dry Manhattan at Leo’s in Mississippi 

Crown Royal and Bell’s Amber Ale at the lake. 

Margarita at the Half Shell. 

My freezer at the cottage.  On Yupo. 

Lemon Drop Martini 

Dirty Martini. Watercolor on gessoed canvas. 

Ruby Red Grapefruit Cosmo

Anjeo Old Fashioned 

Black Beauty 

That was not easy!  A few more for a calendar. 

"The People Who Walked in Darkness Have Seen A Great Light..Isaiah

 The release of vaccine in December 2020 elicited relief from people of the universe: a couple who is grateful that no one is hospitalized or at ER during Christmas or New Year, a surgical resident in New York, a caregiver, a businesswoman, a priest, & choir members or entertainers. The vaccines are shown being administered to all races. The light skinned nurse gives a shot to a dark skinned  nurse who gives a shot to a brown skinned nurse who gives a shot to a red skinned nurse who gives a shot to a light skinned nurse. Someday, I will find the right imagery! I served as Lector at midnight mass for Christmas  Eve & the first line from Isaiah is the timely title of this Jan 2, 2021 art work! Happy Painting to Fellow Artists!

Sara’s scattered brains...

 I finished this 9 x 12 ish painting that I started about a month ago. I like some things about but not everything. Those trees look too stiff imo...I also don’t like painting all those tiny little branches, but that is what most interests me about trees. I like the chaos of all the little branches crossing but I don’t really want to paint them as tiny little branches, so I’m trying to figure out some other kind of marks that actually look chaotic. 

So I did a bunch of little sketches from life. The last one is oil or wax pastels.

I developed a couple sketches into paintings.

The top one is a pencil sketch and oil pastel with watercolor. I like that pencil tree, but it didn’t translate to  oil pastel. But I love the colors. The bottom one is watercolor and gouache. I don’t know, I’m a little scattered these days, maybe I’m sick of trees...maybe I should draw a nice solid coffee cup...happy new year—January 20 can’t get here soon enough!

Elaine O. — January 2, 2021

Happy New Year! I didn't get a lot done this week either. I finished the painting of the first snow of the season (back in normal times) from the Washington and Wabash El platform. It was snowing softly; pretty, and not too cold —perfect winter weather. 

Washington and Wabash    8" x 11"

And in a totally different palette, I had another go at the red door framed by autumn colors, this time in watercolor. Oddly enough, the leaves had just the right glow... until I added the buildings and street. I'll keep going and see if I can get it back.

Red Door        11" x 8"

raven 2

 Didn't get that much done this week.  Beginning to work on the background.