New Website - lollyshera.com, New Blog Address and Two Upcoming Shows!

I am pleased to announce my new website, lollyshera.com!  I hope you like it.  In addition, this blog address will no longer receive postings.  I will be blogging on the new website address at: lollyshera.com/blog.  I invite you to subscribe to the blog to receive emails when a new post comes out.

In addition, I am pleased to announce that I have two shows coming up:

Puget Sound Group of Northwest Artists:

 

Burien Arts Gallery:

 

North Fork Fog

 The clouds descend upon the river in the early Fall creating a misty feel to the air.  Mt. Si looms in the background but on this day it's hidden behind the fog.

North Fork Fog  9x12 oil on linen

Early Dawn - new painting

One of my favorite times of day is the early morning at dawn.  As the landforms emerge out of the night sky the soft, diffuse light spreads over the trees and hills and water, sometimes with a peachy pink note and others a violet, muted hue.  In a sort of time-lapse movie each day begins with its own distinct feel.  

Early Dawn 18x14

Color Sketch for Rattlesnake Cove

I made a drawing of this willow bush against the dark trees a couple of weeks ago.  The water was still and dark showing little reflection of the big trees in the background.  When I returned to the site this week to capture the scene in a plein air color sketch the lake had dropped by several feet (Rattlesnake Lake is controlled by a dam by the City of Seattle).   All the water in front of the willow had disappeared and I was looking at brown lake bottom instead of the beautiful yellow reflections.  What to do?  Well, I decided I liked the memory of the scene from before so I stayed put and painted, making up the reflection from memory!  How convenient is that?  Once again, my paintings are about a confluence of time, place and concept.

Here is the color sketch.  I worked for two mornings during the same time for about two hours each day to complete the painting.  I started with a burnt umber wipeout and painted on top of that.  I like how the warmth of the darkish reddish shows through and gives it an overall color harmony.  This sketch is about 7"x12".  The larger studio painting will be a golden section size of 12"x19.42 inches.

This is an iphone photo so please excuse the glare.  I'll be getting professional photos taken soon.

James Whistler and the Memory Color Sketch

James Whistler (1870's) was famous for his memory work - particularly his nocturnes.  He used to have a friend row him in a boat out on the Thames and he would sit for hours looking and memorizing the scene.  It was too dark to draw or make notes so he would speak out loud to his companion and ask him to verify what he was seeing.  When he returned to the studio he would rush in and slap thin coats of paint on the canvas as fast as he could before the memory faded.

I've been working up at Rattlesnake Lake on a couple of motifs.  This one caught my eye right off the bat and I sat down to draw - immediately - before the light changed.  Instead of snapping a picture (which would be a whole heck of a lot faster and easier) I sat and drew the scene before me.  A couple of days later I sat down at the easel in my studio to do this color sketch.  Having drawn the image already I was familiar with it and it didn't take much to conjure up the scene in my mind's eye.  As I put down my impression on canvas the painting began to appear - looking much like the drawing, but in color.   Soon enough the painting began to make its own aesthetic demands.  There is an "alchemy" that takes place when I swing back and forth between the memory and the image on canvas.

 

Painting From Visual Memory and Imagination

Have you ever looked at something for a long time and then closed your eyes and tried to see the image in your mind's eye?  That's your visual memory.  It's a muscle that can be developed to aide in the creation of paintings! 

Athletes use it all the time when they try to "imagine" themselves performing a trick or move with precision.  If they can see themselves doing it in their imagination, chances are they can execute it when they try it for real. 

I use my visual memory all the time when I create thumbnail sketches for future paintings and sometimes to create a whole new painting - like this one!

I haven't named it yet.  It's part of a series I'm doing of the Pacific Northwest.  It's about 16"x12"

Renaissance Techniques Create a Mountain Scene

The fog rolls in on a misty morning walk around Mt. Si, in the Snoqualmie Valley, WA.     Last blog post I showed you the underpainting for this painting done with one color, Shale, from Vasari.  It's purplish umber color is neutral enough that it can go either warm or cool.  For this painting I chose a cool color harmony. 

Let me describe the steps to create this painting.  To start out,  I glazed in a very light blue layer for the mountains and let it dry.  Then, I laid in an opaque layer  for the sky, using white and naples yellow, with a touch of transparent orange.   Next,  I painted the trees with transparent paints, glazing layer over dry layer.  After that, I adjusted colors and temperatures with velaturas and scumbles.  The last step was brushing the sky color over the tops of the trees, shrouding them in fog.

The many layers of transparent and translucent paint help to create a luminous quality that I like.  As the light passes through the transparent layers it hits the white canvas panel and refracts back out.  The refraction creates a "vibration" between the colors. 

This technique of laying down many layers of transparent and translucent paint is not a new technique.  During the 14th century many artists used the techniques of Master artist, Titian, known to apply as many as 30 or more layers of paint.

( Yet Unnamed ), 12" x12", oil on linen