NELVIA'SART.COM

Pretty As A Penny                                                                            11"x14                                                                               Oil Well I am going to stop while I am ahead and let this sit on the easel for a while.  I might go back in and make some changes later, but right now I just don't want to overwork or ruin what I have done. I can't seem to adjust the colors on the computer to actually reflect the painting. The painting has more color, but have taken and adjusted several times.  Funny how some times the camera makes the pic look bett...

                                                                           The Call                                                                            20"x16"                                                                               Oil Well woke up this morning to no electricity, cold and snowing - I thought we were going to luck out but we are getting a dusting and high winds.  Winds got the tree wh...

                                                                   Hard Times                                                                       8"x10"                            ...

                                                                Heeding the Call                                                                       16"x20"                              ...

Well another rainy dreary day and then 5 whole days of sun - believe it when I see it.  But the good news is that it gives me the excuse to take a day off and play in the art room.  So am going to work on a couple of projects.  First is working some more on the wolves.  Got to tell you I am still not sure about why everyone goes gaga over the oil.  I guess it does give you the opportunity to smush it around and maybe get softer blends.  It definitely gives texture, but I think you could do that as well with the acrylic.  I guess I am going to try to do another animal piece but in acrylic and then make a comparison, might decide that oil is the absolute best thing. Does anyone notice anything that is a major problem?  I see something that I did wrong when I painted in the background and it is a major issue, especially for the front wolf. Thanks much for stopping by and have a great week.

These young wolves are from a beautiful reference shot by Angeline of PMP.   I am thinking of doing this in a larger version in two different ways.  I also have a shot of two other wolves that are howling and am thinking of putting them together in another picture where they would hang side by side.  And then, in an effort to continue to try to work larger, put all four of them together in one canvas. This is in the water mixable oils again, on canvasette paper, and between learning to work stiff, in layers and using Liquin I think I am finally developing a technique that is looser than my normal work.  Well since Spring has come got to go out now and do some garden work.  No rest for the wicked!!! Thanks much for stopping by and hope you are having a good start of the week.

Still working on my wolf.  I kind of reverted and got in some bolder strokes where the hair gets longer, on the body.  Put washes over the individual short hair work I had started with.  So am thinking that now I will go back in and selectively add more hair on top of the base in the face.  This will highlight or emphasize areas and should help to give more depth and dimension at least if you see it close up.  I did not use Liquin for the washes, but tried to use the thinner I am using and it really didn't get as thin a coat or as transparent as the Liquin does.  So learned in the future to stick with the Liquin if I don't want to totally obliterate the work below.  Thanks much for stopping by and hope you will have a wonderful weekend, TGIF!!

Am making progress on my wolf and he is slowly coming to life.  I am finding that I end up and add multiple layers to try to get the salt and pepper look of his fur.  I also haven't fully figured out the ratio of thinner to the oil to make it run but still leave opaque color, but think I am getting the rhythm of doing the fur and am kind of clustering it and then coming back in with a dark or light to break it up.  Boy thought glad I have a great reference photo as the fur really goes in all direction on this wolf - more so than I have encountered before with other furred animals. I am also making progress on my tiger and will show him below.  Because it is not a close crop on the face it is a bit more intricate and is taking just a bit longer, but I have also learned the valuable lesson to let oils dry, especially if you don't want them to blend - like black and white ending up in gray instead of crisp color.   Sorry we are in another rainy spell for d...

Well I am in hogs heaven because I have so many pictures going right now, and about to start another pencil drawing (going back to one of my first loves), that no matter what media or subject I want I have something to work on.   Well realize after I said that I better get something going in pastel. Again of all the animals I have done I haven't done a wolf and you certainly can't be a wildlife painter and not do one of these animals.  They are revered, hated, arbitrarily killed, vicious, great pack hunters, pack lovers and smart.  How can you not want to do this animal? I again am experimenting again in oil with trying to do another technique.  This method does the hair literally one by one.  You can see I have the base coat in and now I am going back and trying to layer in the fur.  Has taken me a couple of tries to figure it out.  Sara Stribbling and a couple of other artists make it look soooo simple - well NOT.  This is so funny, I...

Today's exercise was to try to get back to working faster and looser and just have some fun.  I feel like I have gotten back to taking so much time to do a picture.  So yesterday I found several photos that I liked from PMP and thought I would take a stab at this buffalo/bison in the snow.  Yep going to shoot for another snow picture, but this one is in oil so will splatter snowfall after I get this in.  Know you aren't supposed to do acrylic over oil, but think I am going to try to see if the splatter will stick as I can really make that liquid, which I haven't figured out how to get that consistency with the oils, maybe have to go with trup, to go on the toothbrush.  So what I have pretty much here is a rough in with the buffalo's coat actually the way it probably will be left, just need to work the head.  And then the background needed to dry so I can glaze out the trees that are there, than add another ligher area of closer line of trees, and finally...

Ok guys, this is where I am getting a bit apprehensive and feeling a bit vulnerable.  This is the point where you can really start to see where this is going and I am hoping that you all feel this is going to work.  My biggest fear is that they won't read/connect into one image.  As you can now see the connection is between the indian's blowing hair and the horses tail.  Maybe I need to lengthen the horses tail?              Does it work - let me know your thoughts.              Also my first thought was to keep the indian misty-like without any color so he reads                    ghostly-spirit like,  again your thoughts? Thanks much for stopping by and your honest comments will be much appreciated.

I have a love/hate relationship with my computer.  It tends to just stop and freeze and do nothing so I then do something rash and end up, like now, am waiting for it to do something while I post this via iPad.   It appears when I forced it off this time I really made it unhappy as I have the black screen and white letter and techie talk stuff happening, so .....    Been thinking of a new one and I might have blown it up so may have no choice now.  This is a huge painting for me, 20"x20" and I think I am getting the base coat In  fairly well on the horse.  Got to add  and refine the mane and tail.  The tail placement especially is integral to making this work.  Once it is I place I can go to work on the Indian.  I think I am going to have to do some final tweak blending so I can  get rid of some of the hard edges but still show the color changes I want.   Feels kind of like a paint by number right now.   Overall ...

Thanks much guy - my wonderful support group, YOU ARE THE BEST, fact is I did a Jillian Michaels DVD (can you say ouch!) and then yesterday I over did cleaning and then walked 3 miles.  Since I am getting old by the time I got to paint time the body didn't have any energy for Mohave Point.  But back to it today and am starting this new painting, part of my Spirit series called Running Horse. This painting has haunted me for more than 10 years.  Never could get it out of my head and certainly couldn't get it on paper.  My challenge here is to make the two key elements tie together for one cohesive image and not stand alone like two separate paintings.  Finally found a dynamic running horse, which I can convert to an indian war pony, running at an angle that I think I can connect it with my spirit Indian chief.  At least that is the game plan and we will see how it is going to come together. Since the challenge any oils I have done I am working with a p...

                                                                       Raccoon                                                                           8"x10"                     ...

Today is a brutally cold day, woke up to feels like -3F degrees, know this isn't bad considering other states, but for us it is COLD and windy as well.  So good day to stay inside and start on my oil work studying.  Wanted to try another piece in the loose oil stoke technique since I don't think I have totally let go yet.   Then have some tiger eyes, which will be right up my alley, and this technique is very defined fur work and will be an experiment with acrylic base and oil glazing.  You can then help me decide which you like better.  I guess if I can learn them both, then the subject will determine how loose I can go. Well, decided if I was going to do wildlife I ought to try my hand at something other than big cats, so how about a raccoon.  Seen a few, know they can be nuisances but have such long flowing hairs.  This is a reference shot from PMP's wildlife challenge which I cropped down so I could get right in his face.  This is oil...

Well think I got Mike to a point where he just needs to sit for a few weeks now and thoroughly dry.  I want to be sure that the muzzle areas are real dry so I get the whiskers on.  I also would like to lighten up behind the ears so you see the dark outline and that will give them better shape.  I also want the ruff areas dry so I can put some more strokes on there - it is pretty thick right now so not sure if I can do that - but hoping in about a week I can do that and then let it dry another week before I varnish.  Now back to the Grand Canyon and figuring out what to do as an alternative to working with the oils.  Think maybe I'll try doing part of a vintage truck, which I got some shots of at our neighbor's house, in color pencils just for a slight break.  Just gotta love chrome!! Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great week.

This is the beginning of a study of Mohave Point, Grand Canyon.  Val mentioned working in oil on a small scale so I thought I would kick it up a notch as I wanted to do this picture in a larger size and maybe it is easier working with oil on a larger scale.  While I was thinking 20x20 on some canvas I got, this is actually6 16"x20" because I didn't have the courage to do it on the canvas yet.   I would like to do this without a lot of the details that I seem to get so caught up in and that appearedin my last Grand Canyon pictures. So it begins.  I think on this I am going to experiment in doing a combination of brush and palette knife work to see if I can get the technique back.  The rocks are made up of different strata so I want the layers look.  If the sky appears to be dark it because there was just a storm and the photographer caught the fantastic canyon colors, the sun coming out strong and two rainbows.  I am hoping that the transparent...

Well here is an update on Mike.  For those of you that already work in oils you know that you probably have to have several pictures in process because you have to let what you work on dry enough to go over it.  So promising myself to start the Grand Canyon today.  Because of the detail I am finding it hard to be as loose in this as I would like to be.  Aslo while he is white in much of his face I am going to have to go in and add in grays to show separations of the hair riffs to make it more believable.  I am scared that I am getting to points where I am beginning to over work him, so am going to try to make myself finish off the first coat and then go back and tweak the shadows.  Also this time I am not having any problem getting thick paint on the canvas so the dry time will definitely be longer as I am hardly using any Liquin at all on this piece. Thanks much for stopping by and hope you are having a great week.   We are going to go back i...

   Mike   8"x10" Oil Yep I am taking a bit of a breather after the challenge, but have been working on trying to get some technology things in place.  While most poeple say, this is easy, I am not the least bit computer intutitive so things like PayPal accounts and buttons take me a while to grasp and then be brave enough to try. But I have been painting, meet Mike.  He is the sixth LSU mascot which I am doing for a friend who is a huge LSU fan having gone to school there.  Mike is the only live college tiger mascot, is a Bengali-Siberian mix, and lives in a 15,000 sq ft condo enclosure complete with waterfalls and pool cared for by the vet program.  He is one pampered cat.  He has extremely light coloring, except in the muzzle area where all the color seems to be congregated.  I am trying to work in oil again and definitely guess that with oil you have to work in layers so that you can get i...

                                                                         Thirsty                                                                           8"x10'                   ...