This blog is my portfolio of artwork, a journal about my process of making art...and the things that I have no words for...

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.



Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Doodling around...

A found painting at the bottom of an iron kettle...

   This was so darn pretty...on Thanksgiving day I had water with a cinnamon stick simmering in it on the stove...this old kettle has been a dear old friend for years...we've cooked many a chili in it over camp fires and wood stove fires...so seeing this amazing pattern this morning, I had to photograph it before I cleaned it up...

I've been a little busy...creatively coming along, doodling and looking, making plans for the future, but for now, laying low...I have hung up most of everything that came back from the gallery, or tucked them away if they're of the right size to tuck away...
Wall of a few paintings
 
I treated myself to an early Christmas present...
The price was right, so I got the big starter kit with all the goodies to do encaustics...I haven't done this since college...or the immediate weeks following graduation when I was melting wax in an electric frying pan I bought at a garage sale...so it's been awhile. Not sure when I'll start playing with this...it will need a designated work space where kitties can't get into it...as kitties are likely to do...
A work in progress...
 I've been working steadily along with The Sketchbook Project project...thought I'd share a couple of shots...
The back cover...oops, some stray blue paint...I'm working out how I'm going to decorate the outside...

Yellow in the middle...

A drawing in progress

I've been doing a lot of looking...my camera is building up an archive of images...I can barely keep up with the digital sketchbook...thought I'd share a few things I've seen lately...

A found painting in a grape leaf
I'm coming out of a period of very bad FMS flare ups, I've had a devil of a time with pain management, but it seems the worst part has passed on, and now I'm at a more tolerable level, the usual day-to-day aches and such...the muscle spasms were so bad I felt like I had run a marathon...
it's over with, that's all that matters now... 
Just looking through the lens of the camera, I find the things I like...
The next group of photos is a story about a kitty...
"Popeye" arrived on 10/28/2011
This little kitty has quite the tale to tell...most of it we will never know...we suspect he had an altercation with a car a few weeks ago, we found him hiding underneath our porch on October 28th, half-starved and with an eye injury that was quite gruesome (poor little guy did not need a mask for Halloween, he was quite the scary sight to see!) There was no way to save the eye, but the kitty could be saved...I'll admit, I cringed a bit having to take in one more stray cat, but I couldn't turn my back on him.
One Eyed Popeye, pre-op
 "Popeye" is doing well, recovering from surgery to remove his damaged eye quite nicely...he gets the stitches out on Monday...
Post-Op Popeye...24 hours after surgery
After several days on antibiotics to fight a bad blood infection, he had surgery to remove what was left of the eye on November 15th, and has been recovering nicely ever since...the sweet wee boy has made himself at home...
Popeye can't wait to get out of his fancy collar!

Such a sweet little fellow, we're happy to have him in our family!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Bridge Street Painting...


Detail of The Waxing Moon, 4/9/2011
 This is the painting that I started for the local television show "Bridge Street", I went in with this dusky burnt umber and Payne's gray wash:
The start...4/3/2011
I was a little bit concerned that people would take one look at it and say "Yuck, are you kidding, this is your painting?" but to me it was gorgeous and I was working out in my head the colors I intended to use, and as usual, I cannot plan what will happen...it's intuitive and once I get to work, anything goes...



At the end of the show, Layer #2, 4/4/2011
There was not enough time to finish a painting during the show...I never believed that I could, and I knew Fred wouldn't...it's a lot to do, so I had no expectations that I would... I really loved the foundation that I created...

I took it home and worked on it...4/4-4/9


Once I got into the third stage I needed to walk away from it and give it a rest, the top part was troublesome, but I finally got it settled by Saturday morning...
The Waxing Moon, 4/9/2011




Yesterday I fiddled and tweaked throughout the day and the result is this new nocturnal image that I'm very happy with...

The event itself was a bit of a learning experience...when people asked me how it went I told them that it was awesome and awful at the same time... it was what I expected, yet not... my Fred and I work well together during these moments of stress, if one fumbles, the other fills in the blanks...we did fine a classic grace under fire moment...so the interviewer got our last name wrong, I corrected her and we moved on...the lighting was terrible for painting, but we made do...small stuff...we remained calm and patient, and I'm glad it's done and the painting is just as beautiful as I had hoped it would be...

The auction went well on Friday, we were relaxed, and set up our table with postcards, brochures, our art book, and I set out my two novels (artwork featured on the cover, why not? And it is part of what I do.) Fred brought one of his stone sculptures, and I set out my portfolio of photographs, we kept it simple. Our artwork sold, bidders got bargains. The young woman who bought my drawing Lumina #2 was clearly pleased with winning the bid...it was meant to be...her smile was priceless. I didn't get to see the reaction of the winner of my photograph My Conversation with Georgia, but I did see it leave under the arm of a gentleman...it was for a good cause, and worth doing again. We met more local artists...it's amazing to see how much talent is in the area, most of us all do what we do on the side, a few are professionals (have retired from day jobs.)

It appears that Spring has arrived at last, I'm still photographing the debris of leaves and dead grass, the crocuses are the only things brave enough to bloom. A honey bee was buzzing in them yesterday, and a bumble bee buzzed past my head while I poked around at the twiggy remains in the herb garden. There was a bullfrog belching in the marshy area behind the barn last night, it was sweet hearing his noise...

There is rain on the way, I'm going outside before it comes...

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Back to making more...

Evening Light, 3/28/2011, acrylic wash, monotype, rice paper on canvas, 18 x 6 inches

detail of middle/bottom

Detail of top
Evening Light started off as a blue painting and turned into gold instead...I'm so in love with this little painting! She really sparkles, I don't think the photos really do her justice at all (in most of the pics I took she looks too green, so I had to fiddle a bit to get it right.) I love her simplicity, when I placed the blue horizon bands I knew that was all she needed...I didn't want to do another thing to that surface. I took her to Moonlighting and hung her up to replace one of the paintings that I packed up for Szozoda Gallery, to swap out paintings that have been there since fall. (My Fred and I will be showing there mid-July, the dates yet to be announced.)

The writing and production of our little art book Elemental took up so much of my time that I hardly painted a thing for nearly a month! I'm so glad the book is done, it's published, and out there to be browsed through... it's a real beauty (please click the BookBuzzr widget and enjoy!) It's a fabulous collection of artwork, it barely scratches the surface of what we've accomplished (that's the crazy part of it!) We're in the planning stages for a book of our drawings...so stayed tuned. I've gathered up a bunch of scans and have started the selection process...so much to choose from!

Tomorrow my Fred and I will be on television promoting the CNY Art Showcase, (WSYR Ch. 9, "Bridge Street, 10-11 AM) We're bringing our paints and canvases to work on something new, we'll see what happens with that...I'm trying not to dwell on it too much (if you know what I mean, too much of the 'unknown' and 'what if' imagined disasters sort of stuff that can drive a person to distraction.) I just need to pack up my stuff, pick something comfortable to wear, pack my little apron, and go with the flow...what will be, will be. The auction will be on Friday, we'll go and enjoy the show.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Snowed in again...

Midnight Dreams, January 2011

Evening, Blue and Gold, 2010
I'm finally putting these two up, I have them hanging at the gallery and didn't have photos of them, so I took pictures at the gallery one night after work at long last! Midnight Dreams has never been posted before, but Evening has gone through several changes, and FINALLY, I'm satisfied with it.

Our art book project is nearly done, I'm revisiting my comments, and doing final revisions, keeping it simple and conversational rather than long blathering essays full of incomprehensible bullshit...it’s been good for me to think about what I'm doing rather than the how I'm doing it with the mediums that I'm using, and although I pretty much can explain what my paintings are about having to do with what series they're part of, Nocturne, Bones of the Earth, Blue Sky, Celestial Spring, The Ancients, and so on, I have enjoyed addressing my ideas with brief anecdotes of personal experiences, such as the music that I listen to while painting.  I listen to a lot of Beethoven, or if I'm not actually listening to the music, it's there, humming around in my head. I think my favorite bit of writing so far is the one I wrote for my little painting "The Fifth" being about Beethoven's  5th Symphony and how he was pressed to explain what it was about, Anton Shindler said that Beethoven once told him that it was "Fate knocking at the door", a student said that there was a piece of it that came from the song of a little bird, and another person piped in that the maestro would say anything to get rid of people with pesky questions...which I catch myself doing from time to time, and then later on, I'll come up with something else, I’ve had to back track through my blog and journals to double check titles and ideas, hoping that I’m not contradicting myself too much!

The Fifth, 2008
 Another Beethoven related entry is for The Edge of Night, Cavatina, a little painting on canvas board that I made one sunny afternoon while feeling perfectly content and happy, is quite the contrast from the music that I selected from one of the string quartets (5th movement of Opus 130) to name it. At the same time I painted this, I was working on my novel The Fractured Hues of White Light, it is curious how my creative endeavors to spilled over onto one another and overlapped in layers of thoughts...both pieces give me great joy, but it's odd how sometimes happiness can be painful, almost a cause for sorrow, like a longing for something that has not been and could never be...

The Edge of Night, Cavatina, 2009
This book is going to be so beautiful!

It's back to snow again after several days of rain and warm temperatures, I'm glad the wind has stopped howling in the eaves, that was very unsettling, I always forget how windy March can be...the red wing black birds have arrived in a flock, blown in by the wind I suppose! The chipmunk is above ground again, scurrying around collecting seed in his pouches, poor little thing, I watched him on the porch, snow on his whiskers, quite pitiful...and my cats know he's there, and they "wants him!" But I won't let them outside to get him!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Painting, painting, painting...

Detail of work in progress in the Blue Sky series...layers of color...


Work in progress, from the Blue Sky series 16 x 8 inches

The big one...

Work in progress in the Ancient Mechanism painting 16 x 8 inches
A night sky in progress 12 x 12 inches

Lots of work in progress, nothing finished, yet progress is a good thing, and I'm feeling satisfied with the way things are going...it feels good.


Moonlighting Gallery, 137 First Street, Liverpool New York
Our sign was installed on the store front today (at last)...now people will know who we are...it's so pretty!

Monday, July 05, 2010

Summer Night, a new painting...


It's still a work in progress, but almost done...there's still a little bit of something I want to do to it, a splash here, a splash there...maybe...I'll enjoy it as is for now...

I'm really loving the details...




If you look close there are browns and earthy colors in the layers below the green and Payne's gray, it was a painting that I started back in April and stalled out on it...and I left it hanging on the wall where it could nag me every day (FINISH ME!)

Here's the before:
It had a lot of cool possibilities going on in there, but it wasn't shining like it is now...

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Making stuff up as I go along...

Ancient Mechanism, May 30, 2010, acrylic, wash, monotype, sumi paper on Stonehenge paper, 8 x 8 inches.

I've been having a lovely time painting outside on my porch, using my portable studio table, the weather has been perfect all weekend, and another perfect day is ahead for tomorrow. This little painting started off as something I grabbed off the reject pile today...the original idea was red like my molten ore paintings... but it turned into mud and looked like crap, so I covered it up with Payne's gray (one of my favorite colors) and that looked crappy too, so I forgot about it for several weeks, then today, while I was waiting for other works in progress to dry, I decided to mess around with this...at this point, I figured, I already fucked it up, why not get experimental and see how much worse I could make it look...so I took a square piece of 2 ply mat board and slathered one side with a mix of Payne's gray and burnt umber (makes a nifty earthy blue/brown) and then I went crazy and squeezed a blob of vermillion on the other half, slathered that around and then flipped it onto the victim and "splat", on it went, and I burnished the crap out of it with the nearest jar (since I don't have a press to run it through, I have to print my monotypes with whatever I have handy!) Well...if only I photographed the hideous mess I made...oy, it was yuck-foo...so I turned the mat board a half turn and pressed the colors opposite...that made a bigger mess...then I dabbed my brush into burnt umber and dabbed that around...well, it toned down the vermillion...I was still not happy with it. I let it set for a bit, strolled around the yard, checked my email and browsed on line for a bit, ordered a new book, and then eventually made my way back to it...well, it still looked bad. I poked around a bit, I had just mixed a new batch of my special pale green that I love (that lovely lichen color) and I noticed the skin of the dried paint had released inside the jar, and I just had to start poking at it...yup that was a mess, so I took the piece of dried acrylic skin that was dripping with color and...you got it...I "brushed" it on the mess I was making...hey now...that...wait...I dabbed, dabbled, pressed, and poked...it got better... and thennnnn, I did a little bit of this, a little bit of that...oh, how about this...and flick this on it...well, will you look at that...I like it!

And so, that's how this little guy came into being...I love when that happens!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Heffalumps and Woozels...and a little painting...

Remember when you were little and lying on your back, looking up at the clouds and finding faces and critters in the sky? For some reason, I wasn't that good at it (you'd think I would be, right? No, I really sucked at it.) The problem is (it's not really a problem) I was looking at other things in the sky, not trying to identify with something familiar... I was finding the things that I had no words for. If I saw the pirate or the bunny up there, that'd be all right, but more often than not, I'd say, "Oh, yeah, I see it too..." just because I wanted to fit in with the kids who were with me at the time. I'd point out the things that I saw "Do you see how that cloud has that bright curly wisp and the deep shadow?" The others would say, " Yeah, that's cool, but look over there, I see an old man..." It was frustrating to me when I didn't see what they saw, and they didn't see what I saw... it was just the way things were...

I never intend to "find the faces" in things... draw them or photograph them... but these three photos were 'looking at me' in that special way while I looked through the batch that I took last weekend, and I set them aside calling them the Heffalumps and Woozels...

Pooh and Piglet would certainly run screaming out of the Hundred Acre Wood if they ran up against these guys... (poor Pooh and Piglet!)

They're mostly harmless... just unnerving because of their steady stare...

May Twilight, 5/9/2010
acrylic wash, monotype on BFK Rives
6 x 4 inches

I started and finished this little guy last weekend on my birthday...I started a bunch of things that day...problem with doing so much all at once like that, I felt like I accomplished nothing! But I really did...

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Working on things...



Is it done? Maybe, maybe not... I still see things I could do to it... but here it is the latest from my table... I worked outside on the portable studio table, it feels like summer on the second day of May... such an odd weekend with this early heat, but a lovely day all the same...

I don't know if you remember this... I posted the start of this drawing ages ago, and just finished it a few days ago, I love making these little guys, my pencil wanders and I go with it... I love the crisp lines I can get and the delicate grays, the velvety blacks... they're little giants... big things on small pages. I love getting lost in them while making them... when they're done, I just know it.


(We got our picture in yesterdays Post Standard, that's me with the straw hat on the far right, with my Fred standing by me, we're talking with a friend of ours.) Friday night we attended the closing of the Delavan Art Gallery, it was a bittersweet event, one that was sad to see the end of a good thing, but there is hope for the future as the space undergoes a transformation and a new space will emerge... a transition... we mustn't lose heart... change is good. We'll see what happens... my Fred and I have some ideas of our own, connections that we've made over the years... we'll see what happens. It's all an investment. I'll keep making art... keep going forward.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

The last work of 2009...


Elemental December, Frost and Snow, 12/28/2009, acrylic monotype on sumi paper mounted on canvas, 9 x 9 inches

At one point, I had feared that I was going to work this one to death...it saw many layers, had some of them washed off...here's the documented progression...

Started on 12/5/2009 (I loved this start sooooo much!)


12/6/2009, then I did this the next day...I wasn't completely happy with it, I tried to like it, but...unfortunately (or fortunately depends on how you want to look at it), I didn't photograph the two other attempts that I dunked into the bathtub and scrubbed the paint off with the paint brush...oy!


12/27/2009, I started over again...and washed it off at least one more time (if not two) before I got to this point...then late that night on one final impulse, I added the "windows" and the moon...I woke up the next morning and fell in love with what I had done...and so it's finished...a white painting.

There are more works in progress, tomorrow begins a new year...this is the last one to receive 2009...it's been a very productive year, I have loved my experiments with texture and color and all the hard work has been very rewarding and wonderful! I appreciate all who follow my "blog studio" and leave comments. I'm going to pour some champagne and ring in the new year...all the best to you!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Winter Solstice




Winter Solstice, 12/14/2009, acrylic monotype on sumi paper mounted on Stonehenge paper, 8 x 8 inches

The layers of color are so much fun, they always surprise me in the end! All four are part of a series...a fifth piece is still being contemplated...it seems I'm into my winter nocturnes...must be the long nights and snow bringing it on...