Turtles by Twos

Sketch and partial underpainting on cradled birch panel ©St.Hilaire Nelson

Moving along in my series of Two by Two's for my show at the Thrasher Horne Center for the Arts next year. I wanted to share with you the step by step of my pair of Painted Box Turtles. In sketching these beauties out, I knew I was going to be in trouble with all those spots...

Underpainting on cradled birch panel of male and female ©St.Hilaire Nelson

I utilized a lot of spattering with my fluid acrylics for the top background of these pieces (working on birch panel primed with clear gesso), knowing that I would leave that area as painted in the finished piece. I used my two favorite fluid acrylic colors: Gold Metallic and Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold. After a successful splattered, dripped and very messy background painting, I blocked in the turtles with color and value in mind. I then painted the foreground in a loose style that I thought I might like to leave showing through as paint, with only the turtles being collage.

Male (left) and Female Turtles complete ©St.Hilaire Nelson

I must tell you that tearing all those yellow spots was agonizingly slow going and I'm not ever doing another turtle again. SO, get these in a giclée print from me or purchase the originals (at the Noah's Ark Exhibition) while you can!

I went back and forth over whether or not I had added TOO MUCH COLOR which is a question I rarely ask myself. Maybe it was the fact that I was seeing spots. I bounced the .jpgs off my friend and Dog-A-Day painter Kim Santini for her opinion. Kim infuses tons of color into her paintings, especially in the blacks. I totally value her opinion. AND much of the yellow spots were created from torn bits of her acrylic palette papers she so graciously shares with me on a regular basis.

Her response was something like this "I love the color and would not change a thing, but ultimately it has to be your decision." 

How's that for definitive? LOL I went with the color. You can see they were finished in the dark from the blackness behind the blinds in my studio. After sleeping on it and returning to the easel in the morning with my coffee, I decided Kim was spot on and I was not going to tone down any of that beautiful color. 

WHAT was I thinking? 

Note: Did you know that the way to tell the difference between the male and female painted box turtle is their eye color? The male has red eyes and the female had dark brown/golden eyes!

Not So Black Lab Commission

the sketch on wood panel

The CEO of Full Sail University here in Orlando was taken with my art when "Poised Peacock" appeared on the cover of Winter Park Magazine (that's my cover art you see on their home page) this year. His assistant contacted me about "Over The Moon" but it was already sold.

About a month ago the CEO's wife contacted me about doing a portrait of her husband's dog Mario as a birthday gift. I asked for some good photos but could not get any that really portrayed Mario's facial features. We arranged for me to meet Mario in person and my husband Doug Nelson took reference photos for me to work from. We worked hard to get Mario to sit still!

Doug's photo of Mario

Doug got several good shots and I decided to use this 3/4 view but to turn his eyes to be more facing and engaging the viewer. I loved the way his red collar looked against his dark fur and so I decided to make the background red as well and to frame the final piece in black reclaimed barn wood.

One thing my friend and fellow artist Kim Santini has taught me is how to portray black dogs in blue so that they have more character and more color. After all, her blog is "A Dog A Day" so if anyone knows about not so black labs, it's her. Kim was so generous, even sharing the suggestion of prussian blue and other colors on her palette with me. 

Mario in the under-painting stage

The client was thrilled with this under-painting photo which I sent for approval. Once I get a thumbs up at this phase I dive right into collage. I try to stick to the guides of color and shading I have established in my under-painting with the papers. Luckily I had a lot of blue/purple/gray hand painted papers on hand.

Mario completed 

I pumped up the red in the finished piece and gave it some texture by mark making with Derwent InkTense pencils. When I delivered the work to the client she said that it looked just like Mario and that her husband just loved that dog and she was sure he would love this portrait. 

I'm always happy to have a happy client and a happy ending. Mario the not so black lab was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working in alternate colors to black and trying to highlight the blue/purple tones.

"Fine Feathers" a stop action animation

My husband Doug Nelson is a photographer and all around technical master mind. Lately he's been experimenting with stop-action animation and decided to set up a camera that would automatically click a digital image every 20 seconds in my studio. The result was 1300 photos shot in about a 7+ hour timeframe. As I worked on Fine Feathers in the studio, the camera clicked away. He later took the photos into his MAC and put them together in Final Cut Express where he also added the acoustic guitar solo by Jon Liebing entitled "Red." Jon grew up around the corner from and attended school with my London roommate Suzanne Miazga who died in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988. I met Jon after the plane crash when I was visiting her family in upstate New York. I mention this because it is amazing how one event can change your whole life even 23 years later. Jon sent me his CD about two weeks ago and I listened to it while I was working on and filming the progression of this art! (hear more of Jon's original music here) If you have not yet seen my story on how these events changed my life, check it out on Growing Bolder!

Being a first attempt, Doug was not totally happy with the way the light of day dramatically changes the light on the artwork throughout the day. I have windows on every wall of my studio space and despite the fact that I had lights on in the studio, you can see it get much darker as the day progresses. Next time he plans to cover the windows and work solely with artificial controlled light balance.

I'm super happy with the results, I think it's a neat and interesting way to show the process from start to finish of this piece which is now on display at the Grand Bohemian Gallery Downtown Orlando. You can see the images of sketch, underpainting and finished collage in this previous post.