Jackie Afram - Newport Seascape Series

Newport Seascape Series

Jackie Afram explains to us the challenges of her series of seascapes.

The challenge of this series was to display the differences and similarities of types of oil paints, their media and tools. I created these three paintings of a Newport Rhode Island seascape to  show the different types of oil media and tools that I have been experimenting with in my paintings. 

For seascape #2, I used oil paint, a large bristle brush and Liquin as the medium. I worked to achieve subtle glazed shadings with minimum detail. 

Newport Seascape #2 by Jackie Afram

For seascape #3, I used oil paint, a palette knife and wax as a medium. A different subtlety of shading is achieved with this method. The wax allows the artist to use less oil paint and gives the painting a softer overall appearance. 

Newport Seascape #3 by Jackie Afram

For seascape #4, I used oil bars and gloved hands to mix the colors and push and pull the color across the canvas. Close control and detail are difficult with this media, but it is a great deal of fun. I do not have a favorite medium and use whatever strikes me will work best for what I am painting.

Newport Seascape #4 by Jackie Afram

Kathy Turner - Temporal Series

Our Works in a Series Highlights continue with this from Kathy Turner - 

Temporal Series Statement:

This series of art works developed from my fascination with the discarded remnants of civilization that I could find in the woods near my home and along the banks of the Pimmit Run stream. The rich texture and patina that metal attains as it ages in a natural environment, and of stone as it wears away, spoke to me of the fragility of humanity. I wanted to emphasize how ephemeral our lives are by contrasting these coarse worn surfaces with depictions of soft naked flesh. Each piece tells a slightly different temporal story.

Courtesan: She was a great French beauty, and she used her looks to live in luxury, but only so long as her looks survived the passage of time.

Courtesan by Kathy Turner

Madonna of the Rock: the name is a play upon the name of the da Vinci painting called the Virgin of the Rocks, but this nude is not so virginal perhaps and she lies nestled within the curve of the stone.

Madonna of the Rock by Kathy Turner

Out of Eden: This naked Eve may have been cast out of Eden for her transgressions, but she does not appear to feel guilt over it as she looks boldly and even confrontationally at the viewer. She has made her bed, and harsh though it may be, she will lie in it.

Fallen Angel by Kathy Turner

Fallen Angel: A naked winged man lies huddled in a fetal position, curled up in a pile of dried leaves. I imagined that he was once high and mighty, but through foolish acts he has fallen in shame, and now is hiding his face. I was recalling all of the recent political figures who have been caught in various dalliances and fallen in shame.  

Fallen Angel by Kathy Turner

Generations: 2 nude women kneel facing each other, one is largely pregnant and her head tips down to her belly. They are depicted in a setting of ancient ruins and glyphs, including turtles – and the form of the metal resembles a turtle shell as well. The American Indian cultures tell a story of how earth was created on the back of a turtle and populated by the offspring of the daughter of the Great Spirit. So this piece represents that creation and the generations that will follow.

Generations 2 by Kathy Turner

Kathy Turner

Background:

Studied architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

Degree in Fine Art from Towson State University, Towson, MD.

Studied Japanese woodblock printing in Tokyo Japan.

Worked as a decorative painter for Degage in McLean, VA.

Member of Arlington Artist Alliance and Del Ray Artisans.

Has exhibited and won awards for art for Arlington Artists Alliance, Del Ray Artisans, Arlington County Library art  exhibits, Artisans Gallery in Middleburg NY, Capital Hill Art League, Artomatic and more.

Elisabeth Hudgins - Leaf Impressions Series

Elisabeth Hudgins's contribution to this month's selections on painting in a series-

Leaves are part of my artistic vocabulary. To me they embody so much meaning: renewal, life cycles, being part of the elements of the earth. I often revisit this series, whenever I see exciting leaves or leaf shapes and patterns. I start by collecting the leaves. Then, I use the process of monoprinting with the leaves. In this process, I am actually applying paint on the leaf, and laying the leaf on the paper. Sometimes, I will use a watercolor technique and work "wet into wet", and other times I will use a collage technique. The hardest part is for waiting for the painting to dry, so I can pull up the leaves off the paper and see what happened. This is the unknown element that I find very exciting…. and creates the mystery and surprise of not quite knowing what the outcome will be. 

Hemlock by Elisabeth Hudgins

The mediums I use: watercolor and collage, each allow a kind of transparency. After many years of working solely with the leaf shapes and patterns, I began to add layers of figure drawings to my leaf impressions. They appear almost as double exposures. Two unique images melded into one work. 

Fern3 by Elisabeth Hudgins

To see a slide show of my process for making my Leaf Impressions visit: http://www.elisabethhudgins.com/1/archives/09-2013/1.html

Fall I by Elisabeth Hudgins

And to see more of my Leaf Impression Series visit: http://www.elisabethhudgins.com/leaf-and-tree-gallery.html

Spring by Elisabeth  Hudgins

Rebecca Croft - Everything Lavender - Lavender Series

Next in April's Blog Posts on Series - Rebecca Croft  tells of about her favorites-

Purple.  It's always been my favorite color.  I've never wavered on that from childhood to present.
Travel is one of my great pleasures along with painting.  I've been to France several times.  

 "Lavender In The Valley"  16 x 20  Oil

Two years ago I 
visited Provence where I enjoyed the food, wine, and countryside.  .  

  "Les Beaux, Provence"  12 x 12  Oil

 This is where the most beautiful Lavender
is grown.  It was all around me.  

 "Le Jardin Provence "  12 x 12  Oil

 I came home inspired to paint this series of Lavender Landscapes.  

  "Beautiful Skies Over Lavender"   11 x 14  Oil 

 One day I hope to actually stand in the fields and paint them Plein Air

  "Lavender Fields"  11 x 14  Oil

Wen Lepore -Trying to Making Unique Work

In the Second of our featured Painting in a Series- Now on exhibit at the Gallery Underground.  Wen Lepore shares-

I have been taking art classes since 2008. In the beginning I always like to paint something nice, especially I love to paint landscape, but I don’t like to paint any other things showing in the view… like people, cars, … trashcans or anything messy.  One day I suddenly felt that was really boring, only paint pretty or beautiful things… Because life is not just niceness and beauty, most of our life is a hard time,with pain and suffering. If I paint all beauty, there is a good part, that people would say how nice it is, very lovely painting… and they may forget the next day.

Stanch my Bleeding Heart by Wen LePore

So, I started to thinking more about art, great work, like Shakespeare plays are so famous but most of them are sad stories. People remember sad things.Tragedy is more contagious, because that is true life.  Even for myself I like a little blue music most of the time when I was listening music.

Long Lost Letter by Wen LePore

The great work of art is of course always original, and it should come as a more or less shocking surprise from the natural creation.  Also, my childhood was full of special marks and all the memories are always by my side, very unusual, sometimes very sad, I wanted to show up all those parts in my late paintings and express more my true feeling deep underneath, which is pain in my life.

Lonely by Wen LePore

I want to let people know more about my life through my paintings.  Also I hope my work would get people thinking more about their own lives, or get release from my artistic expression.

Bryan Jernigan - Potential in a Series

The Gallery Underground artists are doing a special presentation of works in a series for the month of April.  All month we will feature the thoughts, motivations and photos of their works.  Please come by and see them in person! 

Our first featured artist, Bryan Jernigan tells us-Potential: Potential confronts us every day. Who do we want to be? Where do we want to go? And how do we get there? Potential stares us in the face.

Radiant Darkness by Bryan Jernigan

On rare occasions we are keen enough to see it, but most of the time it’s fuzzy or lost to us completely. Potential can be scary. The future is an unknown and dark place, but it’s also where potential lives.

Road Ahead by Bryan Jernigan

  I see potential in myself and in others, but I don’t have superpowers, so it’s just as unclear to me as it is to anyone else. In my work, I try to capture in figurative abstraction what potential looks like to me.

Seeing you,Seeing me by Bryan Jernigan

There not There by Bryan Jernigan

 So many times, it’s grainy, undeveloped and obfuscated. I can see the forms, but I can’t see them in sharp focus – they are often stark and intimidating – unrealized potential always is.

Waiting by Bryan Jernigan

   But I’m convinced the more effort I give to it, the more I work on bringing clarity to it, the more likely potential will be realized.