Different Color Palette

By the Light of the Moon, acrylic on canvas, 8 x 16

Elizabeth W. Seaver
sold

I love the quinacridone colors and found one from Golden that I hadn't seen before.  So, of course, I had to order it--quinacridone red light.  It makes a beautiful purple when mixed with cobalt blue and nice orange with cad yellow and y ochre.  By the Light of the Moon is the result.  I'll be playing with it again.

I cleared out space in my studio this morning for the delivery of the panel which is made of mdf over a thin sheet of plywood.  It has a layer of outdoor acrylic primer on it already, so as soon as I've finished a few more paintings for my show, I'll get started on the collage!

Thanks, everyone for your kind congratulations on my last post.  Your support means a lot.

More later.  Gotta get back to work.

On Picking Up the Brush

I Should Have Turned Left at Albuquerque, collage/acrylic

22 x 28, Elizabeth W. Seaver

I found out yesterday that I have been chosen to paint one of six public art panels which will be displayed on the main shopping street in Old Town Fredericskburg.  The artwork has no overall theme, but is meant to showcase the work of each of the artists chosen.

The panel measures 40 x 56, and the painting above was the one I submitted with my application.  Those of you who follow my blog regularly may recognize the study for the painting in this post.  It is possible, even likely, that I will paint over the collage in the background with a more opaque layer, but I wanted the committee to see the "under painting" process I used.

We get the panels today or tomorrow, and the painting must be finished by June 21st so that the paintings can be sealed and opened on July 2nd.

Needless to say, I am extremely pleased and excited and nervous. The rest of May and  June will find me picking up the pace with my brushes.

On Putting Down the Brush

Orange Umbrella 2, acrylic,  approx. 11x11, Elizabeth W. Seaver

Put down the paintbrush and back away from the painting, is my favorite quote from an instructor.  Knowing at what point to stop painting is a hard thing for an artist to learn, I think.   We always want to keep fiddling with something.

This week, I planned a series of shore paintings with a simple underlying design.  Once the under paintings dried, I was going to add collage elements on the umbrella domes(?!)  But at that point, the paintings felt nearly finished.  I did some detail work and put down the brush. 

Hard, that!

It will present a framing challenge, since it is on 3/4" mdf and an odd size--reclaimed, in fact.  I will paint on almost anything.  Don't stand still too long when I have a brush in my hand.

Am I the only one who loves orange and blue together in a painting? 

Ice Cream on the Sidewalk

Ice Cream on the Sidewalk, collage/acrylic on board, 5 x 7

Elizabeth W. Seaver

This is not the sad tale of ice cream on the sidewalk having gone splat, but the hopeful story of a cone on the move.  She's an assertive gal who, rather than waiting in a cold tub for the prospective ice cream aficionado to choose boring vanilla in a cup, dresses herself in chocolate, strawberry, pistachio, and French vanilla and stands on the sidewalk, watching the world go by.  A strong cone, ice cream firmly in place.

Actually, I'm more of a cake and cookie person, and can usually pass a cone right by.  But other people make it look so good.  This particular panel with collage just needed an ice cream cone on it.  So it told me.  And so I painted.  

Bossy thing.

I am working like a fiend with three weeks to go until my show.  There's also plenty of stuff in the "must be done" category that is not nearly as much fun as painting...press release, advertisement, framing, etc.  

My awesome Sis' braved the scary world of on line printing to make my poster and post card.  They arrive within the week.  The show hangs June 7th.  

Everything will get done.  

I know it.

I have been up half the night making lists, the talisman which will insure it!

Thanks all of you who made such nice comments on my 200th post.  You truly enrich my life.  And I have new followers--welcome to you all!

200th Post

 Strange Gardener, acrylic/collage, 5 x 5, Elizabeth W. Seaver
Sold

I can't believe I've been blogging more than a year and a half.  I stunned those who know me as something of a techno-phobe by setting up the blog myself in November, 2008.  That's why it has so few bells and whistles like some of your cool blogs I visit out there.  Perhaps I will celebrate my 200th post by adding some of the things I've liked on other sites.

But, what fun it has been to meet artists from around the world and in my own backyard over these months!  Thanks for your support, encouragement, advice, laughter, appreciation and your fabulous, inspirational art.

Here's to another two hundred posts, perhaps happening more quickly.  Cheers, everyone!

Sweet Nest

Happy Birday, acrylic/collage, 5 x 7, Elizabeth Seaver
Sold

Oh my...do I have a story about nests.  One less appetizing than meant to be in the painting above.

Sunday afternoon, I heard much commotion outside my kitchen window and looked out to see two robins in a very agitated state.  They were flying away and back to a tree at the bottom of our driveway.  The flights were short and jerky and the birds were making alarming sounds.

I went to stand below the tree and saw a nest in the crook of two small branches which I had not noticed before.  And wrapped around the tree with its head in the nest was a long black snake.  The birds dove at it again and again, trying to drive the serpent away.

I stood below in a quandary.  My instinct was to pull the snake out of the tree by its tail and fling it into outer Mongolia.  But truly, how long could I keep it from coming back?  Was I going to set up camp in the ivy to guard the little ones?

Finally I came to the painful realization that this was nature at work, and it really wasn't my job to interfere.  

Soon, the snake reversed its way down the tree and disappeared into the undergrowth.  The male and female robins fluttered around the nest a little while, but I have not seen them near it today.  I don't even know whether there were eggs in the nest or peeplings.  Sigh...signs are not favorable for their survival.

On a happier note, I am having such fun painting little things, and several paintings have gone to good homes lately, including the duck in a beach chair from the last post and the two paintings below.

Evening, acrylic, 6 x 18

Midnight, acrylic 6 x 18

Welcome to my new followers!  More later....

Birds on the March in May

Happy May Day to all of you in my half of the world.

My output has been in small to tiny units over the last few weeks.  My big painting is 5 x 5 inches.  I've made oodles of my collage pins for sale at LibertyTown (you see them here ready to march to the shelves over the weekend.)

And, I haven't been over to see them on display yet, but I was asked to be a part of the local artist spot in a new bookstore opening in Fredericksburg area today, Joseph-Beth Booksellers. I have plans for another "migration" and will share if it happens.

I've also been working on a commissioned work for someone who wanted a piece of mine in a show last year, but it had already sold.  She asked me to paint something similar for a friend who is retiring.  If she doesn't like it, I will put it in my show next month.  Next month.  Yikes.  I've got to go paint!

All This and Retirement, Too, 5 x 5, collage/acrylic, Elizabeth W. Seaver

Later.