Jan 4 - Oops! Not Finished yet!! Round Puppies

Oops, got ahead of myself! (I just get so excited about sharing information.) Here's the pup painting at the second stage, where I'm laying in the darks of the dogs' coats and reinforcing the design elements.

Remember what I said about circular design, and Raphael's work? Since you may not have a familiarity with these design concepts, I've added a second image of this stage of the painting below, taken into Photoshop and with what I see as the abstract structure of the design. Those of you who have had a session or two of "yellin' by Elin" know that design and the structure of your paintings are key to good end results.

In the second image, you'll see the most obvious circles in the design (in red), clearly understandable my Mr. or Ms. Everyone. They may not say, "Oooo, nice circles!" but they will say that they like the painting.

Look now at the partial circles (also known as arcs) that are intersecting the picture (done in purple). These are the supporting design players, but every bit as important in their role. These arcs carry the eye through the work, and reinforce the three main circles. Think of them as the band behind the lead singer. They enhance and reinforce the most obvious circles. These purple lines of the design also show the viewer repetition with variety--more design principles worth having in successful paintings. As your eye follows the purple lines, look where they cross areas of the paintings, and see how those areas continue to carry your eyes. What I'm saying is that we as artists don't have to be obvious with our abstract structure, but it ought to be there.

More tomorrow!

Oh, the link for the March workshop: Three Day Mini-Color Boot Camp is here.


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Happy New Year! Dog Paintings Galore...

How fun it is to start the new year, and subsequently start the numbering system for my painting inventories all over again! I've begun the new year with a bang, completing two paintings already, and getting the slides for them for one of the specialty art shows of the year. This one is slated for the Art Show at the Dog Show.


This is an 18 x 18 inche gallery wrap (1.5 inches deep) canvas, on which I'm painting almost life size, the two puppies Onslow and Sparky asleep. The source image for this is in my blog from a couple days ago. You can see it here. (Opens a new window.)

I love the circular design of the image, and have worked to keep those circles and inter-twining arcs going in the painting. Reminds me of a Raphael painting from the Renaissance, since he was known for his circular designs. Here is his "Madonna of the Chair" for your pleasure. Look at all the circles and arcs in his design!
One of my New Year's Resolutions for you is to link what I do in the studio to the history of art, so you can understand that as artists, we are so connected to what has gone before.

One of my resolutions also is to make paintings with CONTENT, or soul, so that I am not just creating a technical exercise with the pigments, but giving more of myself, the story, and the design more emphasis. This looking-down view of the puppies is my first endeavor.


In doing this painting, I am using oils, and made a quick drawing with burnt umber and ultramarine blue (which I forgot to photograph!) and then laid in the washes of Australian Red Gold (Artist's Spectrum) and a new experimental color for me, Green Umber (Lukas Pigments). The combination of warms is really exciting for me, and I can hardly wait to see what will develop. They are both warm in the spectral reflectance arena, so would go in the warm box. But these are "oddballs" so, they'll only visit once in a while!

I've been working on the February Workshop (full) and now am opening the March one to outside artists--there are only five slots left in this workshop here in my studio. Contact me if you are interested in this three-day "Mini-Color Boot Camp"

And I'm opening the May workshops in Georgia in the coming days (been a bit late on this one!) so the five-day Color Boot Camp and the returnees' Boot Camp will be taking registrations by this weekend. You know who you are!!! (They dubbed themselves "repeat offenders!!")

I'll post a direct link in the days to come.

You can see my entire blog here.

If you need to email me directly, please click here.