Title to Come

The Bent Petal

Since mid-September, I have been working on a series of small paintings, mostly in gouache paint and watercolor. I have a portable, folding watercolor set that I can take with me anywhere, and I can carry the little gouache tubes in my pencil box.

Euphorbia (Abstract)

I may never have the delicacy of a traditional watercolorist. From painting with acrylics, I’ve developed a tendency to grind the paint into the paper. Working with acrylics that way, you can get all kinds of subtle textures and cool integrations of color. Do it with watercolor, and you get an image that looks like it’s been through the laundry. Fortunately, a little gouache, which is like watercolor only more opaque, restores some smoothness and sheen.

Valiant Pansy

I’ve shed a few tears over this series, mainly because people seem to glance over them so quickly, often responding with noncomittal nods and hmms. I started wondering about them myself. There’s nothing grand or complicated about them, and no shortage in the world of pictures of flowers. Still, there’s something to them, and I feel confident of them now, even if I can’t articulate what that something is.

I have just started a page for selling digital prints of my collages and drawings:

http://lshefler.imagekind.com

I have been enjoying the process of refining some of the drawings that I originally made for the web, like the one below. With some upgrading, they work well as prints.

I’ll be adding more images to Imagekind soon. By the end of this week, I will also be online with an ETSY page, where I can sell original paintings, collages, and earrings.

Right now I am taking two painting classes, and in one of them, the teacher has asked us to practice by copying from Old Master paintings–not aiming for a reproduction by any means, but working in our own styles. She has also asked us to bring together figures from different artworks. I am working on a painting that includes the most prominent female nude from Manet’s Dejeuner sur L’Herb, a Cycladic doll, and two figures from Velázquez’s Las Meninas. It’s going to be called “Rex, Victoire, Kora, and Maribárbola Take the Afternoon Off.” Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here is a large study I did of Maribarbola’s face.

And here are some proto-Renaissance saints. Much to my surprise, I feel like they are very much at home among the inhabitants of my artistic imagination.