Painting of the Week

Betsy's 50 Pounder

2012-01-25T07:41:00.000-05:00

These days I am spending most of my time in my studio. But I still do get out now and then, into the wild, wonderful world of plein air painting. This was painted last summer at a local garden, where people can rent a garden plot and grow their own stuff. It is ideal for people who live in apartments or who don't have sunny, deer-free, back yards. I was astonished to see this cabbage - it was the biggest cabbage I had ever seen. And quite beautiful, with all of its gorgeous curly leaves, replete with veins, holes, and lacy edges! It simply begged to be painted. I started my painting with a wet-in-wet underpainting, flooding on most of the colors I anticipated using in the painting. Then I proceeded to paint the head and the leaves, modeling its form, using a combination of positive and negative painting. Lastly came the details - a few of those gorgeous veins, holes, and other blemishes, which gave the plant so much character and distinction.

While I was painting, the gardener arrived - the actual lady who grew this cabbage. Her name was Betsy and she proudly told me it probably weighed about 50 pounds - hence the title.

Betsy's 50 Pounder

watercolor on cold pressed paper

matted, no frame at present, $225.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Window Cascade

2012-01-04T17:29:00.001-05:00

This painting was started as a demo painting for one of my classes. I used a photo which I had shot in a small village in the Alsace region in France. My photo showed the first floor of this house, as well as the floor above, several large windows, exposed wooden timbers, and lots of flowers. I was mostly interested in the idea of the flowers spilling out of their planter boxes and cascading down the walls of the building, so I chose to paint a closer look at just one window and its window garden. I painted this on Bristol Board, which takes the paint very differently from standard watercolor paper. On the Bristol Board my brushstrokes remain very evident on the surface and it is very hard to soften edges or lift paint. It is also pretty tough to create a perfectly smooth, flat wash, without getting lots of back-runs and interesting "unplanned" textural effects happening as the paint dries. (You can see some of these effects on the wall of the house.) I think it is necessary to be flexible and open-minded, to paint boldly and confidently on this surface, and to celebrate every mark that my brush leaves behind. I painted the flowers with an underpainting of warm pinks and yellows, and subsequently carved around the flower shapes with darker greens and blues - negative painting.

Window Cascade

watercolor on Bristol Board

31 x 22 inches, framed

$1250.00

Please visit my web site to see more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

A Place to Grow

2011-12-10T17:47:00.001-05:00

The Caribbean Center Museum of Art on St. Croix is housed in a very old, historic building, which was restored several years ago and is now quite lovely and functional. It has galleries, classrooms, offices, studios, a lovely courtyard, and apartments for its visiting artists. One of the quirky things about this old building is this outdoor stairway, which is the only way to get up to the second floor. I was fascinated by the textures of the stones and stucco or cement and their obvious age, the shadows raking across them, and the plant dripping its foliage over it all. This was painted on Aquabord, which was an ideal surface for creating all that lavish texture. The Aquabord allows me to pile on lots of paint, then push it around and even lift back to (almost) white with ease - a great vehicle for creating the illusion of texture and age.

A Place to Grow

watercolor on Aquabord, 16 x 20" framed

$600.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Cheese!

2011-11-26T08:02:00.000-05:00

This painting plus "All Rows Boarding" can soon be seen at The Winter Show at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro. This annual show is one of the most exciting exhibitions held in Greensboro, and I am always quite thrilled when my art is selectied for it. The show opens on December 3 with the gala "Collectors' Choice" reception, and continues, open to the public, through the holidays and into mid January.

By the way, you can see and read about "All Rows Boarding" if you look back to my April 10 posting from this year. It was included in the Southern Watercolor Society exhibition, so I blogged about it then.

So - back to "Cheese." I shot a photo of a bunch of kids in Paris, mugging for their photographer whose shadow was in my picture. I liked the perspective of looking down on the kids and seeing the shadow but not the actual person who was taking their photograph. I felt I needed a better connection between them and the shadow, so I added the checkerboard pattern on the floor, keeping the colors and contrast in and between the floor tiles strongest in between the kids and the shadow - to pull us visually back and forth between them.

Cheese!

watercolor on cold pressed paper, 23 x 25" framed

$2000.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Fresh Decaf

2011-11-07T13:15:00.000-05:00

A very exciting thing has happened! This painting has been awarded "Editor's Choice" in the most recent Creativity Workshop sponsored by Watercolor Artist Magazine! You can click here to get to the link on their web site which shows the painting and describes the award and my painting process.

In the meantime, here is what I wrote about this painting, when I submitted it to their competition, which was all about using negative painting in watercolor:

This watercolor relied heavily on negative painting. I started with a wet-in-wet underpainting, using the three primary colors, to tone the paper and introduce color where I knew I would be wanting it. Then I painted around the shapes in the coffee machine, carafes, cups, sweetener, and window panes. Within those shapes I painted around highlights, reflections, and smaller descriptive and abstract shapes, to add interest, depth, complexity, and color. Towards the end of the painting I glazed on a few shadows and the orange accents in a positive manner. But, for most of the painting, I was adding glazes negatively and watching the positive shapes emerge!

By the way, I thought it was a fascinating challenge to create a painting based on a subject, which most people might not think twice about. We've all seen coffee machines like this, and we pour our coffee without giving them a second glance. I am hoping that my painting will grab my viewer's attention and command a second glance - and the appreciation of how an ordinary, everyday object can truly become an interesting and compelling piece of art!

Fresh Decaf

watercolor, 33x27 framed

Private collection

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Love, at the Taj

2011-10-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

This painting is presently in Kent, Connecticut, as part of the 35th Annual International Exhibition of the North East Watercolor Society. It was created with the aid of two photos I shot when I visited the Taj Mahal. One photo showed a huge expanse of the building, which is indeed quite immense. The other photo showed these two people, deep in an intimate conversation. I was fascinated with the idea of two lovers at the Taj Mahal, which was built as a testimony and a monument of one man's love for his deceased wife. I did not want to show the entire building, because then the people would have been terribly dwarfed by it. So I decided to take a slice through the building, all the way to the top, and place the people at its base. You can probably imagine how difficult the drawing was, in preparation for this painting! I drew it carefully over and over, each time refining the proportions and the perspective, and adding details where I needed them. When my drawing was finally complete, I transferred it to my watercolor paper, so I had a clean drawing ... without a thousand erasures! I used liquid frisket on some of the building details, and applied my paint in poured washes and also with a brush. This was a very complex painting to create and it took me many days ... but the result is pretty close to what I had initially envisioned.

If you are in Connecticut during the next couple of weeks, you can see this painting and the exhibition at The Gallery at Kent Art Association through November 6.

Love, at the Taj

watercolor on cold pressed paper

37.5 x 16.5 inches, framed

$2500.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Close Encounters

2011-10-10T08:29:00.000-04:00

This painting is presently in Cary, NC, as part of the 66th Annual Juried Exhibition of the Watercolor Society of North Carolina. It was created with the aid of two photographs taken at the North Carolina Zoo, on two separate visits. Both photos were taken in the underground viewing area by the sea lion tank. I loved the cool light transmitted through the water, which bathed the people in a cool, soft, muted light. The photos had lots more people in them, but I just chose to include the ones whose shapes and gestures interested me the most. And then I placed them at interesting intervals on my paper and connected them with the shapes of the animals beyond.

Contrasts of value and color temperature are most important in this painting, to set the stage and create that feeling of looking out from the cool darkness into the brilliant warm sunny pool.

If you are interested, this exhibition is at the Page-Walker Arts & History Center in Cary, North Carolina. It will remain on view through November 27.

Close Encounters

watercolor on cold pressed paper.

21.5 x 37inches, framed

$2000.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Poppin'

2011-09-05T07:00:00.001-04:00

To create this painting I used several photographs of poppies taken on the same day, choosing flowers, buds, and pods from each. In this way I was able to put together an interesting composition, which was more interesting than any of the individual photos on its own. The most challenging part of the entire painting process was to paint all of those tiny hairs lining the stems. I started by applying liquid frisket slowly and carefully, using a small pointed brush, to every hair. This was quite time consuming, but it allowed me to later paint the darker stem colors and background colors freely with a large brush. I applied several glazes on the background, to get it to the final deep value I wanted. This was essential in creating the feeling of strong light falling on and coming through the flowers. I contrasted blues and purples in the background with the yellows and oranges in the flowers - - color theory at work for me! Once the background was established, I removed the frisket and toned the hairs, using colors to reflect and repeat the colors found elsewhere in the painting.

Poppin'

watercolor on cold pressed paper

private collection, not for sale

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

A Warm Awakening

2011-08-07T15:45:00.007-04:00

I have painted this view on location, on St. Croix, numerous times. It is an easy walk from one of our favorite places to stay on the East End of the island. The best time to paint it is early in the morning, when the sun is still low and the distant hills are backlit silhouetted shapes. The complete lack of shade in this location is also another reason to paint this early in the morning, before things heat up too intensely. I particularly like the shapes of the hills as they slip into the distance towards the east. This painting was created in my studio in North Carolina, using a combination of photos, my plein air studies, and my memories of being there. It is painted on a half sheet of cold pressed paper, cut in the long direction. I used numerous glazes to create the various landforms and foliage shapes. Some were brushed on and some were poured. In fact, one of the last layers was a poured layer of semi-opaque paint. This may seem surprising to you, but I wanted to enhance the feeling of the heavy atmosphere, so I mixed some white gouache with some of the warm colors already used in the painting, and poured it directly over the sky and the land. I tipped the paper in different directions to coax it to move and spread, and when I was happy with its shape and breadth, I let the painting dry flat, to stop all further movement. And as it dried, it created the look of wispy clouds or early morning fog rising into the sky. Just what the painting needed!

A Warm Awakening

watercolor on cold pressed paper

19x38" framed

$1500.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Art for Sam

2011-08-04T14:03:00.002-04:00

My husband and I became first-time grandparents in January, with the birth of Sam! This was thrilling for us, and we are totally in love with him! Recently our son asked me if I would paint a series of small paintings for Sam's room, to be hung on a special display "wire," which had previously held their unframed black-and-white photos of architecture. (That was when Sam's room was their office, in those by-gone, pre-nursery days.) I was delighted to do this for Sam, and recently completed a series of 12 by 9 inch acrylics on paper, illustrating the numbers 1 through 9. Here you can see the number 2 as well as a shot of several numbers hanging in his room. This was a nice break from my "serious" painting, although I approached the project as if it was a serious illustration job, starting with thumbnails to be approved by the "client" - our son and daughter-in-law, not Sam. He's not quite up to that, yet! But hopefully he will enjoy looking at these pictures soon, and they will help him to learn to count ....

Time After Time

2011-07-21T08:23:00.003-04:00

This painting was inspired by the view from the cottage where we stay on St. Croix. I spend many hours on our front porch each winter, watching the panoramic view which stretches below us and far to the west. I love to look at the huge sky and the Caribbean Sea, as both continually change throughout the day and the night. One day last January, I came up with the idea of painting the view multiple times on one sheet of watercolor paper, to capture the changing colors, shadow patterns, activity, sunrise and sunset, twinkling lights, stars and moon that can be seen over the course of one day. “Time After Time” is the result. The first image in the upper left is just before dawn, followed by sunrise, then moving through the day and ending, lower right, with a full moon shining over the water. The viewpoint is exactly the same in each little painting. A few details have been added into several of the paintings such as the iconic seaplanes and an historic schooner, but otherwise each painting began with the same land masses and shapes of sky and water. It was great fun and quite challenging to paint the same viewpoint and identical shapes over and over again, varying the light, colors, and details just enough to express the changes throughout a 24 hour period of time. So speaking of time ... choosing a title for this painting was quite difficult. I wanted to express the idea of time passing on the island; I toyed with words such as daily, tropical, passage, hours, island, moments, paradise, change, and on and on and on. When “Time After Time” popped into my mind, I knew it was just right! Simple, concise, descriptive, and repetitive, just like the painting.

This painting is presently not for sale, but it has been made into a limited edition giclee, printed on archival, acid free watercolor paper and measuring 15.5 by 21.5 inches. I am personally numbering and signing each giclee.

“Time After Time”

giclee printed on archival, watercolor paper, 15.5 x 21.5"

$195.00

available directly from my studio, in North Carolina
- or -
if you are on St. Croix, they are available exclusively from Many Hands Gallery Christiansted!

Please visit my web site at http://www.alexislavineartist.com
to see lots more paintings!

Poised

2011-07-10T07:29:00.002-04:00

Last Fall the Green Hill Center for North Carolina announced a competition. Artists were asked to create a piece of art in honor of the US Figure Skating Championships, which were to be held in Greensboro in January of this year. The winning art would be printed on a gazillion posters to commemorate the event. I have always loved watching figure skating on TV during the winter Olympics, so I decided to rise to the challenge and enter this competition.

Hmmmmmm, what to paint? I feel very strongly about using only my own source material for my paintings, so I was kind of stuck. No photos, of my own, of figure skaters. Too early in the season to go out and find figure skaters to sketch or photograph. So I went to our local used sporting goods store and bought an inexpensive pair of ladies' figure skates. Shot lots of photos outside in strong natural light, found the best composition, cropped my photo and got to work. I kept the actual skates on my painting table, as I worked, so I could refer to them for details in construction, form, texture, and color. And, yes, they were indeed white skates, but I enhanced the color that I saw to make a more arresting image.

Oh, by the way, I was a "runner up" in the competition. No posters for me. But you could own this painting - if it speaks to you ...

Poised

watercolor on cold pressed paper, 22x22 inches framed

$850.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Steppin Out

2011-06-24T14:54:00.003-04:00

Every winter on St. Croix there is a hilarious dog parade on the boardwalk. People go to great lengths to dress their dogs, and themselves, in the most outlandish costumes possible. Prizes are awarded to the dogs and their people in various categories. A couple of years ago, I shot a bunch of photos at this delightful event. This painting is the result, and draws upon dogs and people from several different images. I decided to eliminate the costumes, so that the painting would be more "universal," easier to understand and to identify with, since most viewers would probably not have seen the actual parade. The red bandana is the one hold-over from the event. I chose to crop out the upper portions of the people, so I could focus in on the animals and what they are doing. I wanted the fat little dog on the left to literally walk out of the painting towards us, so I cropped its paw out the bottom.

This painting has been juried into an important annual, national exhibition called Watercolor USA 2011. The exhibition at the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Missouri will be on view there through August 7. It has already been purchased by another museum in Missouri, called the Dunnagan Gallery of Art!

Steppin Out

watercolor on cold pressed paper, 18 x 37" framed

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Making Lemonade

2011-06-04T13:57:00.006-04:00

Remember that saying ... making lemonade out of lemons? Well, here is a painterly example of just that. I was curious as to how my hand made Indian Nujabi paper would behave when poured upon with liquid watercolor. So I drew this large tree and coated it with liquid frisket. My biggest concern was how the frisket would react to this paper, which has a very soft surface. The pouring went fine - the paint moved nicely over the surface and created some lovely translucent effects. BUT - the frisket did not want to come off! I was not entirely surprised by this, which is why I tried to remove it after only one single layer of poured paint and applied frisket. So - I persisted in coaxing the frisket off, and in doing so, literally removed the top layer of paper along with the frisket. The exposed under-layer of paper was very rough and shredded. Wherever there had been no frisket, the lovely poured glaze remained. My first instinct was to trash the painting. And then I decided to paint over the shredded surface areas to see what would happen. I discovered that I was able to apply some paint to those areas, and they took on a fascinating texture and interesting mottled brushstrokes. So began the making of lemonade! I continued to work on the painting ... using NO additional frisket ... just brushing on color, mostly in the negative spaces to create new branches and trees via negative painting. The result is a painting that looks playful, somewhat fantastical, and has a highly textured surface not usually seen on a watercolor.

There's nothing like a glass of fresh lemonade on a hot day in June!

Woodsedge Welcome

watercolor on hand-made cold pressed paper

20 x 26 inches, framed

$600.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Backyard Beauty

2011-05-13T06:58:00.006-04:00

Looking back through my recent posts, I notice that nearly all of my paintings have shown subjects from distant places. This one was painted in my yard. I sat on my porch one fine day last Spring and painted this small plein air watercolor. I tried something I had never done before in this painting - using liquid frisket outdoors. We watercolor painters are generally advised to not use liquid frisket outdoors, because exposure to sunlight might make it harder to remove the frisket later on. However, since I was under the cover of my porch, I decided that my painting would not receive any direct sunlight, and so I took the chance. It would have been most difficult to paint those around all those small light branches and leaf clusters without the aid of the frisket. This allowed me to paint my wet-in-wet background and the dark tree trunks directly - and I was able to remove it later with no difficulty.

This Spring, when sitting on my porch, I look at this particular tree and I smile ... there's my painting. It is good to know that we can make art so close to home. There are subjects for our art right in our own backyards!

Backyard Beauty

watercolor on cold pressed paper, 17x13 framed

$300.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Looking Good

2011-04-30T08:16:00.002-04:00

Once again, I have found myself inspired by the people and places on St. Croix. This time, it was some random people on and near the beach after the annual Mardi Croix parade. I pulled figures into my composition from several Mardi Croix photos, in addition to one photo of people at a street festival in North Carolina. When doing this it is critical to keep the various figures and other pieces in the same perspective, proportion, and lighting. This can get very tricky, so I work very carefully, when doing this. I also eliminated a lot of distracting shapes from the background and foreground, so I could focus my attention - and my viewers' attention - on the figures and the story being told.

This painting will be on view from May 6 through May 29 at the 2011 National Juried Exhibition, sponsored by the Art League of Hilton Head, at the Walter Greer Gallery on Hilton Head Island, SC.

Looking Good

watercolor on cold pressed paper

19.5 x 29" framed

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

All Rows Boarding

2011-04-10T11:32:00.004-04:00

I was flying to upstate New York, with a connection in Philadelphia. With a couple of hours to hang around before my next flight, I wandered throughout the terminal, looking at the art exhibits - there were three nice exhibits of wall art - and scrutinizing my fellow travelers. At one spot I noticed a mezzanine area and went up there to see what I could see. Up there I discovered a great view of the line where passengers waited for the shuttle bus to take them to more distant terminals. Looking down on them was quite interesting, as they shuffled along, hauling baggage and other travel necessities. I shot many photos from my crow's nest and compiled several of them into this watercolor. This painting was accepted into the 34th annual juried exhibition of the Southern Watercolor Society, which opens today in Greenvile, NC. Artists from 19 southern states entered this exhibition. This was the first time I ever entered this particular exhibition, so I was especially pleased to be selected! If you live in or near Greenville, the exhibition will hang through May 20.

All Rows Boarding

watercolor on cold-pressed paper, 29x23 framed

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Up and Out!

2011-03-18T12:12:00.001-04:00

Back to the tropics now, although you might not recognize it as such. This painting is a view looking upward inside the remains of an old sugar mill (wind mill) on St. Croix. I have shown you other views of sugar mills in previous posts, but never one from this vantage point. Since these sugar mills are centuries old, the windmill blades and sugar cane grinding machinery are long gone. All that is left is these grand conical structures, open to the sky above. Plants frequently take root on them, wherevver they can find a footing. This particular mill is in quite good shape; many others are missing big chunks of their walls. I think that these structures are magnificent and they are loaded with multiple layers of history and culture. I had long wanted to paint a view looking up through a mill, but decided to do this with the aid of a photograph - and save the strain on my neck!

Up and Out!

watercolor on canvas, 17x20" framed

$425.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Twilights

2011-03-04T12:10:00.001-05:00

My last post was all about tropical color, and here we are back in winter. What's going on? Well, I figured I'd show you one last winter painting, as we head into full-blown Spring here in NC. This painting was a demo for a workshop I taught in my studio in early January. It kind of looked like this in most parts of the country right about then. The interesting thing about this painting was that I used a photo reference to inspire it - which was shot in Anchorage, Alaska. Before you say, "Aha, that explains it," let me assure you that the photo was shot in August, when there was absolutely NO snow in sight. The trees were green, the sun was shining, and the foreground was a lush field of growing green stuff and hundreds of poppies. In fact I painted this scene before, in a more literal interpretation, and posted it on my blog on: July 5, 2010 (Click here to see it and compare it with this new version.)

This time, I wanted to use the photo in a more personal way, to express what I was feeling about the season, and this is the result!

Twilight

watercolor on cold pressed paper

27x31 framed

$795.00

Please visit my web site to lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Blue Door

2011-02-18T11:33:00.005-05:00

Hello!

A few days ago I returned from a marvelous 4-week-mid-winter-get-away on the island of St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I just love that little island, and after 8 years of wintering there, feel quite at home there and have lots of art friends. One of the nicest aspects of the island is a group of plein air painters called the Palletteers. (Yes, that is the way they spell it!) Every Friday morning these painters - full time residents, as well as winter snowbirds like me - head out to a pre-arranged location to spend the morning painting. Sometimes the group gets invited to a private home or a location not ordinarily open to the public. I consider that to be a very special privilege and opportunity. The day I painted "Blue Door" was such a day. We were invited to an artist's home and provided with driving directions ... which took us up and up and around and around and up some more, and we finally arrived at a magnificent home with a killer view of about half of the island. So what did I end up painting? The killer view? The fabulous architecture? Nope. I was drawn to this old blue door, peeling from exposure to the sun, and the ceramic tile steps next to it. I decided to zoom in on both, to show just enough in my painting so that the various parts were identifiable. And I wanted to saturate my painting with lots of COLOR! I painted this on watercolor canvas, which requires a hefty amount of paint to really get the values to read and the colors to pop. But it is also good for creating the illusion of textures, such as the peeling door. Beware: if you are going to paint on watercolor canvas, make sure that your paint is fresh and easily manipulated, and paint as directly as you can, because glazing is very difficult. (The paint just wants to lift right back off the surface!) But the results can be worth all the effort ....

Blue Door

16 x 12 inch gallery wrapped watercolor canvas

$425.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

A Quick Note

2011-01-14T15:46:00.004-05:00

A quick note to my blog subscribers:

You may have noticed a lack of posts from me lately. Or, perhaps you didn't notice...

I found myself getting kind of burned out and needed to take a break.

But I'll get back in the routine soon, perhaps with a new format, so please hang on...

Thank you so much for your interest!

And all the best to you, in this still very New Year,

Alexis

Talkeetna Sunset

2010-11-08T10:05:00.006-05:00

This is a studio painting, created with the aid of a photographic reference. The photo was taken at around 11:00 p.m. one evening after a late dinner, at a rustic-chic lodge on the Richardson Highway in Alaska. We just loved those late night sunsets! In this case, the sun had already set below the mountains and it was throwing great beams of golden light high up into the sky. It was truly breathtaking! To paint this, I relied on multiple glazes of very wet color on saturated paper, to build up the intensity, the values, and the cloud shapes in the sky. The rest of the painting was subsequently created with many more glazes, most applied positively, but a few applied negatively, to create the darker and darkest shapes in the mountain masses and foreground.

Talkeetna Sunset

watercolor on cold pressed paper, 24x30, matted but presently unframed

$850.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Maine and Masa

2010-10-28T13:42:00.006-04:00

Here is another watercolor inspired by my recent trip to Maine. This one is a studio painting, begun as a demo for one of my watercolor classes. I used the crinkled Masa paper technique for this. (Please check back to my blog entry dated August 5, 2010 for a description of this technique.) Here is the really cool thing about this technique: the Masa paper is truly my partner in creating my painting. This is how this works: I loosely sketched the overall large mass of the rocks in, but when actually painting individual rocks, I used the cracks and wrinkles in the crinkled surface to guide me in placing their edges, designating their shapes, and defining crevices between them. Using the cracks in the paper, and painting positively as well as negatively, results in a delightfully random and organic pattern, and a very natural and relaxed look.

Acadia Shoreline

watercolor on Masa paper, 15x19 framed

$295.00

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Acadia Light Demo

2010-10-18T14:05:00.000-04:00

As promised, here is a studio version of my lighthouse sketch, created as a demo painting for one of my watercolor classes. I relied solely on my travel journal sketch, for my source material for this painting. And of course, my memories of being there helped me to achieve the feeling I was after in my painting - strong light, dramatic cliffside setting, and an old dignified lighthouse building. I designed this demo as a vignette, with interesting white, unpainted corner shapes, because the shapes of the rocks and trees lent themselves perfectly to this kind of a design plan. Notice how I used those shapes, positively and/or negatively, to end the painted area and transition into the unpainted corners. When I create a vignette, I always plan and design the corner shapes and their sizes, their dimensions along the paper edges, and the quality of the edges where painted image meets unpainted corners, with great care and consideration.

I tired very hard to maintain the freshness here, as seen in the original on-location sketch. Frequently studio paintings, while they may be better designed and executed, lose the freshness and spontaneity of their plein air counterparts. So I tried to stay lose and transparent with my strokes and washes.

Acadia Light

watercolor on rough paper, image size 15x11"

$395.00 framed

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com

Kenai Majesty

2010-10-07T07:24:00.002-04:00

On Sunday the 65th Juried Exhibition of the Watercolor Society of North Carolina will open at the Hickory Museum of Art. This painting of mine has been juried into the exhibition. This watercolor was painted earlier this year, based on a photo I shot on my 2008 trip to Alaska. I was awed by the mountains, the glaciers, and the crystal water everywhere along the Kenai Peninsula. In my painting I tried to capture a sense of the dramatic shapes in the landscape, the distance and the height into which I was looking, and the clear light which was bathing us all. I relied on numerous transparent glazes, painted positively and negatively, to create my shapes, to deepen their values, and to imbue the scene with depth and atmosphere.

The exhibition will continue through January 2, so I hope you will be able to stop by and see it. Seventy one watercolors created by watercolor painters all over our state are hanging - everything from landscapes to florals to portraits to abstracts. A diverse and beautiful show which demonstrates the versatility and uniqueness of watercolor!

Kenai Majesty

watercolor on cold pressed paper, 18x24 image

Please visit my web site to see lots more paintings:

http://www.alexislavineartist.com