Saturday, July 07, 2007

July 7- Oh, from the darkly hallows...

Come with me to the Way-Back Machine, and I'll show you a work from the early 1980s. It's a 24 x 30 oil, done from material I took at the Bishop Mule Days, and this was before I was doing acrylics, and it shows you all where I was at the time. Nothing wrong with looking back over old work--it can show you where you were on your painting journey, and revisiting these elder stepping stones can teach in unusual ways.
For example, here I see I had no understanding of how color behaves in light and shadow. And I did the usual mistake of making things lighter by adding white to them, creating a chalking overview. I didn't know how to make things recede into space yet, but I sure was in love with blue shadows! I also hadn't figured out how to make my brush marks convey space. OK, enough bashing. It is well drawn.

An interesting side note, look at the signature. It is the earliest version of my trademark "Elin", and includes my maiden name!

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Friday, July 06, 2007

July 6 - Drawings for the Three Dog Commission


I've now returned to working on the three-dog commission of the wonderfully gentle natures of these canines. More details and a couple more possibilities off my pencil tonight. When I do commissions like this, it is my utmost desire to capture the nature of the animal, and a composite of their expressions, without losing the specific "look" of the dog. There is no substitute for good reference images to reach that goal, and I have some good ones. But to make a composition with three dogs, and none of the reference images are consistent in lighting or perspective, makes for quite a challenge. I'm ready for it, though, as the acrylic DVD winds down--I need a new puzzle!!
On another note, Alberto has been busy putting over one hundred of my paintings into my ebay store where it is easy to search for a painting by category or title.

Congratulations to Charlotte McDavid of Birmingham, Alabama, on the addition of "Kentucky River" to her collection of "Elin" paintings!


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Thursday, July 05, 2007

July 5 - Shelf Life, One of Four Fabricritters

The last of the Fabricritters for your pleasure and enjoyment, this one with the canning jars (just fabric collaged onto the canvas and then painted to LOOK like glass jars!!) and the box of Oat Bran reminding us to be sure to have enough fiber in our diets. I think with all our cat hair from Pesto and Bats, we get enough!

I've attached a close-up of the cat and one jar to show you how it all blends together into a painting. I especially like how "glassy" the fabric swatches are in this smaller detail view. Enjoy!


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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

July 4 - Calicoal, the First Fabricritter (Acrylic collage!)



After yesterday's carrousel horse, I received this informative email from one of East Coast friends that I thought you'd enjoy: "Oddly enough, not beyond belief and fitting to my propensity for useless detail, I know a great deal about the designing and construction of the early carousels. When I was taking care of one of the Smithsonian off site storage facilities, I had the complete carousel animal collection in one of my bays. Most of them were in open storage crates and available to me to me in making some detail drawings. A lot of the carousels were built in Philadelphia because of the furniture industry. Carousel animals were carved from the furniture off cuts, "chunks" as they were known in the trade. The "chunks" were glued and literally spiked together. The most elaborately carved horse on any carousel was known as the "lead' or "king" horse. The outside horses were the largest and the fanciest carved. Most of the carvers came from Europe with only the clothes on their back and a satchel of tools. It was a common practice that the apprentices carved the animal bodies and the heads were carved by masters. As a side line, a lot of church statuary were carved by these men."

So to follow up on the continuing saga of the Fabricritters, here is the largest of the four pieces, never shown before. This measures 30 x 40 inches, and is called "Calicoal" I hope you enjoy this one! It was the first that I created, and as it seems to be of interest to many of you who have your hands in quilting and other fabric arts, somewhat fitting. Here's a closeup of the head, where you can see the paint work, and then an image of the head and shoulder, showing the transition to the fabric. Acrylics are wonderful for applying with collage materials.


I've considered selling these four pieces... (oh, you haven't seen the fourth one! Well, that's tomorrow.) But whoever whould buy them, well it will take a very special person, is all.

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

July 3 - Fabricritter Carrousel Horse, 36 x 24

This painting is one of the Fabricritter series I did several years ago, along with Lila-cat and Shelf Life, another of the four. This was the last one, and I really pulled out the stops on it. Almost 90% of the canvas is made up of applied fabric swatches, over which I glazed acrylic color and medium to seal the swatches down. This is especially evident in the background.

The painting is a stretched canvas, and the flexibility of the fabric matches the canvas, plus the medium and paint are also flexible. Painting details such as the eye was just so much "eye candy!"

In this closeup of the head, you can see the fabric pieces that make up the background as well as the detail pieces on the bridle. What is really fascinating, though, is this detail of the mane just behind the ears... take a look at how the texture of the white calico cloth mimics the variations in a horse's mane coloration! I painted darker swatches of color over the fabric to make it look more like mane, using Payne's gray and other variations on the background colors. I'd love to do some more of these, but what do you call 'em? Paintings, assemblages, or craft? Dilemma!



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Monday, July 02, 2007

July 2 - Finished the Details, "The Quest" Acrylic

Sometimes there are just those few brush strokes that need to be added to make a good painting into something really special. I spent about an hour today on "The Quest", the advanced/intermediate lesson painting in the Acrylics Fast and Loose DVD, and those few brush strokes take that painting to a new level. If you'll compare this one with the one on the blog from a few days ago, you just might notice a wee tad difference.
Today I also worked on the inside front cover ad I submit to Horses in Art magazine. I do these in Photoshop, and wanted especially to include this painting. Double motivation!

Now, those of you with a pocket full of design, take a look at the ad and see if you can spot the underlying structure of the arrow point that goes through all three paintings. Intentionally unifies the whole page... and that cover for the new DVD "just happens" to be bright red....

Happy almost Fourth to our US contingent!


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Sunday, July 01, 2007

July 1 - Lila-cat, Acrylic Fabric Collage, 18 x 24

I'm still working on the acrylic DVD, and coming to the part where I show some "slides" of some of my work. This "Fabricritter" called "Lila-cat" came to light as one example of what the possibilities are for using a collage-type application with pieces of upholstery fabric. The cat has pieces of fabric throughout the body, painted and glazed over with acrylic colors and gel mediums. The flowers in the whiskey barrel are all fabric, with only a few embellishments! And there are pieces of fabric creating the background and wall, too. 18 x 24 inches
Robert Genn in his bi-weekly email touts acrylics on June 28. He doesn't have it posted on his web site yet, but the quote I like came from the second paragraph: "Acrylic facilitates experimentation and gives new ability to process ideas. Faster and fresher, the journey becomes less arduous--and in many ways, more fun." I sure agree with that!

Congratulations to new collector Betty Dawson of Dallas, Texas, on her purchase of "Rose" from my ebay store.

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