My "Birdland" series consists of almost 30 paintings I've done over the past year or so. I decided to package a few favorites into a set of cards which I'll be selling via my website sometime in September/October. The large 5x7 size makes them suitable for framing. My photographer did a test run at the printer's so I could review the color quality--I'm very pleased with the results.
The TV series "Portlandia" coined the phrase "put a bird on it", and though it may be true that many artists use birds in their paintings, the trick is to make it your own. After all, it's just a shape--and a very useful design element around which you can build a painting.
My "Birdland" series consists of almost 30 paintings I've done over the past year or so. I decided to package a few favorites into a set of cards which I'll be selling via my website sometime in September/October. The large 5x7 size makes them suitable for framing. My photographer did a test run at the printer's so I could review the color quality--I'm very pleased with the results.
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Sometimes a painting starts ONE way and then "morphs" into a completely different painting altogether. Such was the case of an acrylic marbling painting I started this spring in anticipation of Portland's annual Rose Show Festival. This year's theme was "Rockin' Roses" (who picks these themes, I wonder?).
My original concept seemed fairly straightforward (or so I thought). I had done a few previous versions of this dancing couple and I thought I'd paint them on a red/white marbled background. I thought maybe I'd add a jukebox, but this vertical orientation made it hard to fit it in. So....I turned the whole thing into a horizontal painting and decided that the couple would be sitting in an old fashioned malt shop. Maybe I could put a jukebox on the left hand side of the painting? Hm...that left a blank space on the right hand side---I tried putting a sauntering bobby-soxer into the foreground, but she was at an odd angle (that's what I get for trying to make this stuff up) and that jukebox was proving to be a hassle to paint--it didn't flow with the rest of the painting, either. At this point, I decided to submit a different painting for the Rose Show (good thing--because "On The Rocks with a Twist" won an honorable mention). A month or so later, while painting in my studio, I came across this failed, abandoned painting, and decided to once more shift the painting BACK to a vertical--and completely change the subject matter one more time. Ah...that's better---this one is still in progress, but already I'm liking it better than the earlier drafts. Amazing how many coats of paint you can do in acrylics (this is on canvas, so it really holds the paint). Not much of the original painting is left, but still there are some faint indications of the previous shapes. Maybe I should call this one "What Lies Beneath". I'm having a great time this week in a workshop taught by Eugene Oregon artist Geoff McCormack. He gave us a demo on how he creates his beautiful rock textures, and I set to work doing a preliminary series I call "Rock Paper Scissors". This colorful painting is #1 in the series; I created a more neutral colored version (changing the drawing/composition slightly) in the #2 version. These 2 paintings are all watercolor, 10 x 14 inches. I took pictures of both paintings in progress (and still not quite complete--I need to add more values). Here is the second in the series (Rock Paper Scissors #2). Notice the different composition and the choice of colors.
Admittedly I haven't been using my blog as often as some artists do, but since I'm very fond of showing & describing how a painting is built (from the ground up), I thought I'd post the various stages of one of my recent paintings "Rose Grid".
You can see that I started out with a mottled, stamped background (this is acrylic on Tyvek paper by the way). Next, I drew a grid on the paper and created a vase (actually two vases) of flowers. I added some more flowers and a few leaves (some are collaged on) and called it "Rose Grid". Enjoy! A few of my fellow artists and I took a workshop from Ed Labadie in which we worked from "chaos to order"---spraying our paper and dropping in acrylic colors, and letting things run together. Then we stand back and evaluate. We might decide to keep things abstract, or (in my case) add some subject matter (fish) to the whole thing. Here's an image of what my painting first looked like, and where I'm at right now....this thing is still in progress, mind you.
I'm taking part in the Art Challenge at the Village Gallery of Arts in Portland, Oregon. We have one month to create four works of art --little 6x6 inch canvases that will hang vertically. So the trick is to make them related (theme or color-wise) but individual enough to stand on their own. A tall order for a short painting!
Last year, I was working on my bird canvases for Art Challenge up until the week before the deadline; but this year, thanks to the fact that we got our canvases a week earlier than usual, I managed to get these things done over the course of 2 days. The idea came to me as I looked a box of collage papers I've made over the years (using acrylics and texture making tools to scrape through the paint and make patterns). Here are the four completed paintings---to see them in person, come to the gallery between 10am and 4pm during the day long reception on Saturday May 5. These works (and many many other 6x6 paintings by other artists) will be on display and for sale during the month long show. After years of resisting, I think it's high time I started blogging about art-related topics like many of the rest of my fellow artists seem to be doing. In this space, I will be writing about paintings in progress (watercolor, acrylic and acrylic marbling) and share some insights that I hope will enlighten artists and anyone who is interested in the act of art-making.
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Artist Liz Walker
I'm a painter/art instructor who lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Archives
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