Author Archives: susie

The Eyes Have It

Many of you know that I was at a Janet Rogers workshop this last week at Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff in Boone, NC.  I met some fabulous new friends and amazing artists.  Janet is very improvisational, which suits me and certainly got me motivated.  I learned a lot about shadow shapes and am finding new ways to paint them – it’s a negative space exercise.  This makes you think backwards, really.  Instead of outlining the figure, face or flower, you paint the shadows.  Very challenging.

What I really loved was the Eye exercise – the half-face to be exact.  I’ve spent a lot of time gazing at the loose pastels of Virginia St. John where she puts in just a few lines and gestures to indicate and inform us on who’s there.  Imagine my ecstacy when my Eye painting reminded me of her.  Maybe she’s in heaven looking over my shoulder.  I miss her every day that I paint and am so grateful for her fabulous works.

Painting Turtles

TURT

My grandson, Eric, has always had a terrific sense of design.  Here’s just one of his masterpieces.  When he was barely able to manage putting stickers on a page, I was startled by how well his sticker art held together visually.  There was always some movement, shape and a place for the eye to rest.  Can you see in his picture above why it’s a good design?

When I asked Eric about Turt, here’s what he wrote to me:

Basically I drew it with markers. I got the idea because I love turtles.

Love,

Eric

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Anybody have turtles to share that you’ve painted or that have been created by your kids and grandkids?  Send them to me and I’ll post them.

The Dancer

This figure has been drawn, painted, scratched and generally imprinted in my brain for many weeks, now. My friend Diana Prevot, a wonderful landscape artist, advised me to draw a figure so many times that I could do it in my sleep. She said that pretty soon it would become organic and take on a life of its own.

Finally I have a design for the minimalist painting for my architect friend in Minneapolis. His hi-rise condo is very structured and angular with concrete floors, visible duct work and lots of corners on the gorgeous furniture which he crafted himself. I wanted to give him two things: An oval rug for the living room, and a painting for his bedroom that had movement and curves.  He’ll get the painting.

What you see here is a small piece, but matted and framed is 16 x 20.  I am going to do several more of these with different backgrounds and different angles and posture, maybe superimpose some over the other to indicate movement.  This might become a series, who knows?  Enjoy!

Addendum:  I was playing around, trying learn the incredibly difficult Adobe PhotoShop Elements and thought these three versions looked pretty neat.  What do you think?

Used the "distort" feature which lets you decide on the wave action

Added a "diffuse glow" - love the darkness of this one

Added some ink lines for interest without distracting