CAROL NELSON FINE ART BLOG

Highlights from Jay Moore Large Canvas Demonstration

2009-11-21T17:11:00.001-07:00

Highlights from Jay Moore Large Canvas Demonstration
This link will take you to A DAY NOT WASTED, the blog of Lee Brown. Lee writes an excellent account of a recent workshop he took with acclaimed landscape painter, Jay Moore.

NEST 4, 9110, textured bird nest with eggs ©Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-21T15:04:00.008-07:00

The Colorado Watercolor Society sent me a prospectus for their upcoming show 3/5/2010 - 3/14/2010 in Denver. All media has to be water media on paper. I haven't done anything on paper in several years, but I use acrylic paints all the time and they are considered water media. That's as far as I read the prospectus before jumping in.

I went out a bought one sheet of 300 lb watercolor paper and painted this little textured nest of eggs. I tore the edges of that paper, then mounted it on a piece of burlap, over another piece of paper painted blue-green, and mounted all that on a piece of mat board on which I had put little spatters.

It's a big four layer sandwich. All of this is in a shadow box frame under glass. I think it's a creative presentation for this subject matter. Then I reread the prospectus. Oh no! They won't allow any paintings unless they're matted in "clean, white mats". My burlap and texture, let alone the spatters, are absolutely verboten. They've been in that clean, white mat mode for years. Colored liners or fillets must be no more than a quarter inch.

Maybe I'm a nonconformist at heart. I wish they would create a category for "experimental watermedia" where anything goes, including framing. What do you watercolorists think of these restrictive rules???
For purchase information on this very nonconforming water media painting, please see my website.

CONCOURSE B, 9109, airport commuters © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-16T15:48:00.008-07:00

This is the latest torture installment on Karin Jurick's blog, Different Strokes from Different Folks.blogspot.com. Painting this was like being waterboarded. I just wanted it to be over. The dramatic lighting from an overhead skylight and the extreme foreshortening of the figures made for 4 hours of hell. Check out the blog, and see how nearly everyone struggled with this one - although several are excellent.

As you can see from the reference photo, I took a few liberties with the colors. The people in the photo don't even look real to me. To purchase this 6x6 oil painting for $100, please email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net

SOLD

PRECIOUS METALS, 9108, metals and mixed media abstract © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-15T19:23:00.005-07:00

I love doing these mixed media geologic abstracts. This one has copper, pewter, and aluminum metals and gold and copper paints and foils. With all the shiny components, it appeals to my inner crow. That shiny little purple rectangle is purple colored aluminum foil I found in an art supply store and is made by a Japanese company. LOVE IT.

I showed it to my husband, seeking his suggestions for a title. His title was SOS, meaning Same Old S__t. Did I tell you he's not an abstract kind of guy? Even so, I thought that quite rude. After 16 years of marital harmony, I have developed a thick skin and his opinions are water off a duck. Quack, quack.

If you're interested in purchasing this painting, better hurry, because I'm shipping it off to my newest gallery, The Bradley Art Gallery, in Stoughton, WI. next week. For more about my abstract work, please see my website or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

BUTTERFLY POPPIES, 9107, textured palette knife poppies © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-11T17:42:00.005-07:00

I don't know if there is any such thing as "butterfly poppies," but it seemed appropriate for this painting because as I was working on the petals I was reminded of butterfly wings. Once again, I continue on my palette knife binge. I just like the texture you get with a knife.

I originally had magenta, yellow and orange poppies, but it did not seem like the painting was pulling together with all the variety in the flower colors. Eventually they all ended up much closer to one another in hue. The black background showing through here and there has a unifying effect.
This painting took me quite a while to work out the color scheme, but I'm finally happy with the finished result.

For purchase information on this gallery wrapped 24x24 inch (61x61cm) painting, please see my website, or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

THREE'S COMPANY, 9106, textured palette knife still life © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-10T19:47:00.003-07:00

I am having fun with these palette knife paintings. The unique texture created by a knife is so pure - you are literally looking at a slice of pure pigment. This is not to say I don't mix the paints out of the tube - I do, but when I have mixed the desired color mixture, it is applied directly. The result is a passage without a lot of blending of colors into each other.
I took a lot of liberties with the colors in these pears. Pears come in a lot of colors although the turquoise may be a bit of an exaggeration.
For purchase information of this painting, please see my website, or send me an email at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

APPLE TRIO, 9105, textured palette knife still life © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-09T10:00:00.015-07:00

Notice that little copyright sign in the title of this post? All you have to type is the following three symbols or words with no spaces: & copy ;
I think that is very cool, although it won't stop the Chinese from copying your work.

This painting was difficult to photograph because of the red. There is a lot of alizarin red (Golden's Alizarin Crimson Hue fluid acrylic) in these apples and, for some reason, instead of getting that gorgeous deep, rich red, it wants to show as brown. I had to tweek the colors to get a fair representation of the painting, but I lost a little of the purple tones in the background in the process.

I used four other red family colors in these apples - Golden's Primal Magenta and Pyrrole Orange, and Liquitex's Napthol Red Light and Quinacridone Crimson.
Those colors are SO LUSCIOUS. I was outside varnishing the painting yesterday and when the sun shines on this piece, it literally knocks your socks off. Actually, I wasn't wearing socks at the time, but I know they would have flown off if I had been.
For purchase information on this painting, please see my website or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net

Fall Newsletter

2009-11-08T21:24:00.006-07:00

My newsletter is an irregularly published blurb I send out via email to people who have signed up for it at shows or while visiting my website. If you are a regular reader of this blog, it's mostly a rehash of what I'm posting here.
As they say in marketing 101, getting your name and images of your work in front of potential buyers is the name of the game. Of course, one has to be careful not to send it to random people who have not asked to be on the list, lest I be put in the category of spammers.
If you want to take a look, here is a link to my latest newsletter. If you want to be on my newsletter list to get my occassional epistles, just go to my website and sign up. Thanks, Carol

1st PLACE

2009-11-08T11:56:00.005-07:00

My painting, SHINING THROUGH, 9076, was awarded 1st place in the juried GATEWAY TO THE ROCKIES SHOW. I knew (or at least had a feeling) I had a winner when I painted that one. This painting has gold metallic paint which glows softly under the right lighting.
Reception for this art show will be on Friday, 11/13/2009, for those in the Denver area. Details on my website under "events".

UP CLOSE, 9104, textured poppy close up painting © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-07T17:45:00.005-07:00

This extreme closeup of a poppy is in the tradition of huge floral paintings for which Georgia O'Keefe was famous. I painted this on a cradled panel with the painting extending around to the edges. In spite of it's small size, (12 x 6 inches) it packs a lot of bang for the buck. If you have a spot that needs a little color, this will do the job.
For purchase information, please see my website, or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.
SOLD

GOLDEN POPPIES 1, 9102, textured poppy floral painting © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-04T21:43:00.005-07:00

I haven't painted any poppies lately and was having withdrawal symptoms. Usually I've painted them on a canvas ground, so this painting on MDF panel was something new. I really like the way the sculpted petals look on this smooth surface.
For purchase information on this beautifully framed piece, please see my website.

Precious models her new coat.

2009-11-04T16:09:00.003-07:00

This is my dog, Precious, a 12 year old shih tzu. She looks spiffy in her new color coordinated coat with faux fur collar - Precious would never wear real fur other than her own. She also likes the slenderizing effect of basic black.

NEST 2, 9100, textured birds nest with eggs © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-03T21:07:00.006-07:00

This is my last nest posting for a while. This is similar to nest 1 except this is a 6x6 square, while the previous one was a 5x7. This presentation is also with a mat and under glass. The effect is similar to Nest 3 and with the glass on top, they almost look like actual nest and egg specimens.
For purchase information, please see my website. SOLD

NEST 3, 9101, textured birds nest with eggs © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-02T21:28:00.006-07:00

Another bird nest with eggs that are speckled pinkish and brown. This painting is on a 5x7 inch gessoboard panel, which I would normally frame without glass. I had this black frame with double matting in my studio. When I slipped the painting in under the matting, it looked so good that I'm going to present it in this fashion.
If the glass is distracting, it can be removed, but on a matted painting, I like having glass to protect the mat. For purchase information, please see my website.

BLUE HEAVEN, 9099, textured blue hydrangea flowers © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-11-01T21:14:00.003-07:00

I enjoyed doing a hydrangea commission so much last week I just had to try doing another one. This one is on 6 x 6 inch panel and also features use of abundant texture. For purchase information, please see my website.

NEST, 9098, textured bird nest with eggs © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-10-31T10:50:00.007-06:00

There is something intimate about peeking into a bird's nest to see a clutch of eggs. It is a sight rarely seen, and it is reassuring, in a way, to see nature's wild creatures going on with their life's business as they have for thousands of years.
I painted this piece on Gessoboard, which is a very smooth surface. To suggest a structure of weeds, grasses and twigs surrounding the eggs, I used heavy body acrylic paints mixed with modeling paste applied with a palette knife. The knife edge gave the thin, grass-like strokes I was looking for.
This painting is sold, but, stay tuned, as I plan on doing a series of eggs in nests.

CITYSCAPE 2, 9097, abstracted city rooftops and architecture © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-10-29T11:11:00.005-06:00

This is a larger version of the DSFDF photo of city roof tops. The first version I did is much smaller and is a mixed media piece - see blog entry of 10/18/2009. This one is on canvas and it simply acrylic paints and modeling compound . I've been working on this painting for about two weeks and it has undergone numerous transformations. I am finally happy with the result.

Being an abstracted version of the photo, it is all about patterns, negative space, and focal point. As you can see the complexity of the shapes increases to the right and slightly below the middle of the painting. Rotating the painting to a vertical format yields an equally interesting composition.

The colors evolved on their own. The reference photo was mostly subtle tones of blue, grey and yellow. Most of my work is not subtle in terms of palette! I love strong value contrasts so I was able to go nuts with this one.
For purchase information, please see my website.

HYDRANGEA BOUQUET, 9096, impasto still life of blue hydrangeas © Carol Nelson Fine Art

2009-10-27T20:13:00.005-06:00

This painting is a commission piece for a collector who lives in Hawaii. With all the beautiful tropical flowers around her, she still misses the deep blues of the hydrangeas she remembers from the northeast. Her request was that the painting be predominantly of the flowers, have deep cobalt blues, and heavy impasto. SOLD

AUTUMN BEAUTY 9, 9092, sunken relief of autumn leaves

2009-10-26T15:17:00.003-06:00

Another in my sunken relief series of leaves embedded in acrylic medium. Each one is 6x6 on MDF panel with heavy texture outlining the leaf shapes.
Please see my website for purchase information.

GLITTER GULCH 2, 9093, textured abstract with metals and metal leaf

2009-10-25T20:36:00.002-06:00

More squares. I don't know why I find squares recurring over and over again in my compositions. Maybe their conformity is comforting on some level. I used a rug hooking grid to create the little cubes with acrylic medium. Two colors of aluminum and one of copper were used in the metallic shapes. Of course, I always prefer earth tones for most of my work, so there is a dominance of copper, bronze, and gold tone metallic paints.
For purchase information on this 11x6 cradled abstract, please see my website.

TWELVE, 9091, abstract composition using decorative mini tiles.

2009-10-24T21:27:00.007-06:00

First, I bought the little tiles at Loews, then I created a composition to feature them. Actually, I don't know if they're tiles or stones. They have all the surface irregularity of genuine stone. I love the rugged textured look of the stone/tiles and the subtle colors are incredibly beautiful - OK, I might have enhanced the colors a tiny bit.
This piece is mounted on MDF board panel. It ended up to be quite heavy for such a small piece (14 x 4.5 inches). For purchase information, please see my website.

SOUP, 9090, alphabet letters abstract

2009-10-22T14:09:00.003-06:00

OK, I admit this painting was just playing around. I had a vague idea about Madison Ave, media, advertising, the printed word, etc, etc. I showed it to my husband and he didn't see the connection. His title says it all. They're just random alphabet letters, so don't try to read anything into it.
For purchase information on this whimsical piece, please see my website.

AUTUMN BEAUTY 8, 9089, sunken relief of autumn leaves

2009-10-20T22:03:00.003-06:00

This is another of my sunken relief leaf paintings. I blew it on photographing it. I varnished it before I photographed it and the shine is very distracting. I had to manually go in and digitally paint out some of the shine with my photo editing software. Because I had to turn down the brightness, the squares do not show their silver leaf shine very well. Problems, problems. What I need is a polarizing lens to eliminate the shine.
For purchase information, please see my website. SOLD

CITYSCAPE, 9085, mixed media abstract of city architecture

2009-10-18T17:39:00.004-06:00

At my recent Metals and Mixed Media workshop, I worked on this abstract featuring several metallic and textural elements. I didn't have time to complete it at the workshop. As a matter of fact, it was still in the "is this going to work" stage by the end of the workshop.
As is often the case with abstract work, I looked at it with new eyes the next day, and did sufficient tweaking to it that I am now happy with the result.
The inspiration for this painting came from Karin Jurick's Different Strokes from Different Folks blog. The minute I saw her latest photo posting for the challenge, I KNEW I had to do it as an abstract. Of course the composition's the thing and there are so many different compositions you could make from this awesome photo.
For purchase information, please see my website.

AUTUMN BEAUTY 3, 9084, sunken relief of aspen leaves

2009-10-12T15:54:00.003-06:00

This is similar to Autumn Beauty 1 & 2 in concept. The size of this one is 7.5 x 7.5 inches. For purchase information, please see my website or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.