Author name: Karen Waltermire

A few months ago I traveled to Philadelphia to see the “Marie Laurencin” exhibit at the Barnes Foundation.  She was a painter in Paris 1920s and is best known for creating her own style of paintings with only women in them.  The focus of her work was women and while at the exhibit I learned that she used codes in her work to show her love of women and in paintings where she was in them she painted the figure representing her a darker grey than the other figures.  When I look at her work I always think of Impressionism but that term doesn’t really capture what she was about.  Her work was, and still is, not as well known as the men of that time but she did have many commissions by famous women to have their portrait painted.

About five years ago I was introduced to her work and what initially grabbed me was how lightly her paint was applied (she was an oil painter) and that she used bright colors.  I don’t paint the way she does but I have learned so much by studying her work and have been using brighter colors and applying the paint to the canvas in a delicate manner.  My work is mostly portraits of women from imagination but my intent is to show female empowerment, independence, and growth.  I was amazed to look at her paintings and not see definite brush lines (except one of the last paintings in the show) and up close her paintings reminded me more of illustration with their light touch.

I recently finished “Bright Lights Ahead” (18″x24″ – oil on canvas) and once it is fully dry, I will ship it to the UK.  This is a commission for a recent college graduate who wants bright colors (specifically blue and other cold colors) and told me she didn’t want to put too many restrictions on me that would hamper my creativity (she was a dream client!).  She likes my other recent pieces with really distored head shapes and detailed backgrounds.  I had three canvases this size so I started three and worked on them a little before asking if she liked any of them.  She picked this one and I finished it for her.  Working on a commission is both nerve wracking and exciting because I need to bring the client’s words to life on a canvas.

The large squares around her eyes are glasses and the top of her head is open to receive new information.  The light blue in the background represents the sky – I imagined her standing outside enjoying a beautiful day.  The shapes in her neck represent building blocks.  Her neck, and the rest of her body, is ready to support her and all that she is learning and experiencing as she begins this new chapter in her life.

This painting is a more abstracted face than I have traditionally created and I am very happy about this slightly new direction in my work.  Most of the traditional elements in a face are gone and eplaced with the background of the painting.  There is a tall vertical shape with shades of turquoise in it to represent the head and neck with vertical shapes in pink outside it connecting to an overall pinkish background.  When I imagined the bright yellow shape above the eye, I wanted it to flow and wave like something underwater and the color inspired the title of the painting.

Painting title: Sunshine
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 24″x30″
Price: $1,450.00

Tonight I attended the reception for the “Summer Breeze” exhibit at Stirling Art Studios & Gallery in Dunedin, Florida.  The theme was open to the artist’s interpretation and I enjoyed looking at many different interpretations and expressions of summer.  At Stirling, there is gallery space mostly around the perimeter of their space.  In the middle are studios for individual artists to rent in order to create and sell their artwork.  One artist explained how she makes most of her sales from her studio because people like to look at all of her work, meet her, talk about art and really get to know the artist they buy from.  Art buyers and collectors want to form a relationship with the artists they buy from.  Her comments underscore how important it is for artists to not only have space to show their work, but also have a space where they can create and sell their work.

The ”Summer Breeze” exhibit will be up through August 27 and I highly recommend visiting Stirling Art Studios & Gallery.  If you have time, talk to some of the artists and let them tell you about their work and their process.

www.stirlingartstudiosandgallery.com

New in my store….oil painting 11″x14″ for $300.  The title is “One Turquoise Eye.”  The person is central to the composition with one eye and a patch of turquoise where the other would be on a yellow face.  The face is bright and the color doesn’t jump out too much.  There are lines going horizontally and vertically on the canvas which support the portrait without holding her down.  Lots of

For almost one month I have been drawing every day and posting the drawing as a story to Instagram and Facebook.  The drawing above, today’s Story, is about 5.50″ x 6.0″ and didn’t take too long to do.  I have never drawn as much before and maybe because I wasn’t keeping track of when I drew – I just did it.  When I thought about creating art daily I used to worry that I would run out of ideas and get in a rut.  The exact opposite has occurred – I seem to have opened up, in my imagination, a whole new way of seeing faces that I want to draw.  I love it and look forward to drawing when I wake up.  My next goal is to paint daily after I figure out how to do that with oil paint when I only have about 30 minutes to work.  I am sure I will find a solution to that, too.

Do you draw and/or paint daily?  Have you had trouble finding inspiration?  If you haven’t tried to work every day on your art, I hope you will.  I think you will find it pleasurable and almost meditative.

Ink drawing on white paper (5.50″x6.0″).  The title is “Scanning” and it is available in my online store for $40.00.

Painting is so much more than the act of moving the brush across the canvas.  What colors do I want to use?  What is my painting going to be about?  Composition is crucial to the success of a painting because it is the foundation upon which the color sits and it is impossible to fix a bad composition with color.  Even paintings with no human or animal subjects need a good foundation to start with.  Even paintings with no drawing involved need a good foundation.

Some people prefer to draw the composition in pencil on to the canvas before painting and some draw the composition with paint and both are great ways to begin.  I draw my compositions in paint before adding color and revise as I go along while working on the painting.  For the painting above, “On A Bike”, I focused more on the bike sculpture than the figure because the bike is the foundation of the painting.  Since the painting is large (30″x40″) I needed a large focal point.  The figure is important to the painting but the emotions conveyed by her sitting on the bike are more crucial to the composition than what her face looks like.  The setting is the beach, so there is sand and sky behind her holding her in place.  There are vertical lines the same color as the sky and the horizon line is a counterbalance which gives the painting balance.  I think I used around five or so colors in this painting.

“On A Bike” is 30″x40″ oil on canvas (framed with a hook on the back) and the price is $2400.00.  Available now in my online store.