This piece is painted upon one of the many canvases given to me by the late Valerie Erichsen Thomson, and so is already a piece laden with the passage of time and the brevity of life. And yet, the tilt of this crow's head - is that a knowing smile? Broader feathers, wide wings - oh yes. And some big ol' feet and long legs, please. Now you're talking.
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The Downside of Lycanthropy runs through October 31 at Unlimited IPA in Portland, Oregon and right here. Comments, feedback and goosebumps are welcome.
Congratulations to Carl S! Wonder Mike selected your name at random to win the September Reader Giveaway! Email your shipping address to thewanderingsoflola@gmail.com and your prize will be on the way! Thank you to everyone who participated. :)
About the art - beginning with white, white WHITE Yupo and a colored pencil. Lightly sketching some large shapes. Blending neutrals for sky and foreground and loosely adding them with an extra large rubber wedge. Moving the liquin-thinned paint on the Yupo is gloriously tactile and creates lovely textures. Adding pinks, then adding color to the pinks to create hot and cool zones. Using a small brush and some dark darks with restraint. Gamsol-thinned dripping paint added as a final touch. This piece feels like candy. Yum.
About the art: the AI bot loves pink. I could spend hours just instructing it to make outlandish scenes in shades of pink. This piece is inspired by a series of cowboy images, all dripping in pink. Beginning with a canvas panel and applying layers of liquin-thinned pinks, alternating between rubber wedge and brush to create texture. A rough figure sketch in the middle, keeping the hot spots of pink close to the cowboy and letting it "cool" toward the edges. Alternating layers of darks and lights to create shadows and folds in the clothing. Creating "flowers" with loose brush strokes and resisting the urge to perfect them. A final touch of the lightest lights with a palette knife.
About the art: This piece was inspired by a very surreal and abstracted session with the AI bot, where I asked for wolves and women and Edgar Degas and Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt. The resulting flurry of images was startling and impactful. I chose some elements of the images and decided on a vertical orientation with a couple of hot color edges to "frame" the action - there is distance between the malevolent character and the seemingly unaware human, yet they are forced into a confined space by the color. Thinned oil paint layers were used almost exclusively, with exception of the hair and hot edges. As always, resisting the urge to overly define, letting the paint whisper and nudge.
Whether it is the direction you point the art you are creating, your professional life, your personal life or your feet on the path every day, going the other way from everyone else is not the easiest route. There may be catcalls, heckling, judging, name-calling, intentional sabotage or tossed tomatoes. Once you're standing in the place of wonder, you may no longer even care what the naysayers are up to. Let's go there.
About the art: beginning with a primed linen canvas and thinned oil paint, marking the darks with loose strokes with a rubber wedge and dragging the paint. Building layers working dark into light, blending with a soft brush, paper towels and fingers. Adding more dark washes of glaze and dragging them to create movement. Ending with lights and hot spots using a palette knife and a small rubber wedge. This piece is inspired by both our adventures in the wilderness and our wanderings in reading books, combining the misty mystery of mountains hiked with the unpredictable tempest that is the ocean of seafaring adventures.
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AuthorLola Jovan |