Journey to Sedona, AZ

This week I taught collage at the Sedona Art Center, as I have been doing for four years. Read about my class, the town, and how I found gallery representation there as well. A business trip in the true sense of the word. 

Growing Bolder Blog Here

Thank You
for being a part of my
Art Journey,

Elizabeth

Progression of a Peacock

My daughter worked many hours on this wonderful promotional video for me. See building the support,  painting the papers, the collage process, and the final project, all in under two minutes.

Thanks to my husband for building the oversized support, and thanks to Emilie for hours of editing long after the filming was complete.

New Work - Indian Paintbrush

Indian Paintbrush Series, 12x16, collage on cradled panel, ©St.Hilaire Nelson
CLICK TO ENLARGE

More work in the flower series to be considered by Pier One Imports for reproduction on canvas. This particular set utilizes "another man's junk" as my treasure! Three steps show above, 1) Sketch, 2) Under-painting, 3) Finished Collage.

Kimberly Santini of Painting a Dog a Day sent me discarded palette papers from her work in open acrylics to consider using as collage material. Kim and I have gotten to know each other through blogging and email and I have to say that she has become one heck of a good friend. The kind of person you look forward to reading email from with your coffee in the morning!

I absolutely love these palette papers and the combination of colors that happens randomly from Kim mixing paints! Keep them coming Kim, I am officially a HOARDER.

Blooms, for Pier One Imports

©St.Hilaire Nelson

I have created these two 12x16 wildflowers on cradled birch panel for Pier One Imports. They are in the process of evaluating them right now and considering them for fine art reproduction. If they go for them, I will probably have to create four more in this same series of wildflowers.

Question for you, would you be interested in purchasing an original collage that has been licensed for fine art reproduction and would be available at Pier One Imports? Is the original still more valuable to you than a print?

Please leave a comment below, I'd like to know. I just might put the wildflowers up for bid on the blog.

Fiddle Head Ferns Finds a Home

Fiddle Head Ferns, 18x18, mixed media collage on cradled birch panel ©St. Hilaire Nelson

Many thanks to Kim Santini of Painting A Dog A Day for purchasing my Fiddle Head Ferns from the Exquisite Harmony Music Series. She told me when I shipped this piece that she already had a wall ready and waiting in her kitchen. I guess we could not have planned a more perfect match!

The green in the fern really looks lovely on the wall. Kim's husband actually asked her how I knew what color their kitchen was!

Kim made my day with her quote:
"I think it is my most favorite possession right now - the one thing I'd grab on my way out the door were the house on fire and all the kids and pets safely out. Along with my Susan Leyland drawing, which is conveniently also on the way out." 

I don't think I could have asked for a better testimonial, or to be in better company!

Holiday Cow Note Cards

Over The Moon has had a holiday hat added and she's ready to send Season's Greetings to your family and friends!

Note card is 4x6 on glossy white card stock with matching white envelopes.

Inside Greeting:
Wishing you the Special Gifts of this Holiday Season - Peace, Joy and Lasting Happiness.

Quantities

10 Cards $25.00 25 Cards $40.00 50 Cards $76.00 100 Cards $132.00

Sul Tasto, Finds New Home!

Sul Tasto / 20x24 / collage on cradled panel / ©St.Hilaire Nelson

Emma took my workshop at Maitland Art Center over the weekend and purchased the signature marketing piece from the show, Sul Tasto! I was thrilled to see this piece go to Emma as she is an art lover and collector and she actually played the violin for a year as a kid.

It certainly is nice to receive a photo of my artwork in its new home, it looks like Emma has given this collage a quite position of distinction over her fireplace.

I hope she will enjoy it for years to come.

Maitland Art and History Association

Today was the first day of my Paper Paintings workshop at Maitland Art Center. I have five terrific students from diverse backgrounds. We enjoyed this morning discussing the technique I used to create the work in my current exhibit, Exquisite Harmony which is up through Sunday the 24th of this month. (if you have not seen it, this weekend is the time to go).

After lunch we brought out our fluid acrylics and hand-painted several different types of papers for collage and the apple lesson, which we will start on tomorrow morning.

Much thanks to Gloria Capozzi for popping in and taking the photos, an entire album is available on my Facebook Fan Page.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the students will create tomorrow!

Stay tuned.

Music to My Eyes

initial sketch, pencil on birch gallery boxed panel 

For those of you who have been following my work for Exquisite Harmony, my solo exhibition at Maitland Art Center, this is the final piece that I am working on for the show. Delivery date is September 5. I have been adding hanging hardware  and labeling the pieces as I go along, so there will be no final rush to prepare works for the gallery the night before. I have also been creating the art cards and have typeset the Bruce Adolphe poems to go along with the 13 Carnival of the Animals collages.

I wanted to include dancers as representatives of music from the beginning, but I saved her for the end. I'll be listening to flamenco music on Pandora as I create this piece. I might even have to eat some Latin food to help me get into the rhythm of things!

Once again, I'll be looking for a title for her when she is complete, as I have nothing in mind at the moment. I just have always loved the color and intensity of these dancers and their costumes.

She is started in my typical process,  a pencil sketch on birch gallery boxed panel primed with Liquitex clear gesso. I prefer a Faber Castell 9000 series pencil, as it has some varnish mixed in with the graphite and tends to smear less when I apply the clear gesso over the top of the sketch. Experience has brought me to the point of sketching directly on unprimed wood, and then priming over both sketch and panel before creating my acrylic under-painting.

Typically I had been working on un-cradeled panel which I framed in barn wood hand-made by my frame maker in Kentucky. For this show, I decided to use the gallery boxed panel so as to keep the look clean and contemporary. I felt that this would lend itself to the variety of subject matter that makes up this  body of work.

So, be thinking of a title as we go through the process of this final installment to Exquisite Harmony, on display at the Maitland Art Center in Maitland, FL from September 10-October 24.

August Altamonte Workshop

Thanks to fun and talented student, Joyce Shelton, I have a good photo of me teaching and  her blog post to link to about my most recent workshop!

Joyce took the class with her good friend and kids book illustrator Loreen Leedy who also blogged about her experience in preparing for my mini-class in Altamonte.

I thank both of these women for offering me some great TESTIMONIALS! Something I was lacking a link to before.

In the second photo, the group is hard at work with paper everywhere!
A good time was had by all.

Tuscan Triptych

© St. Hilaire Nelson 2010 | three panels 12x24

The last of the vacation artwork!

Here is the Tuscan scene I worked on over the beach break. I like it for the simplicity. This piece is more about color, pattern and shapes rather than shading and volume. While I was working on it, I likened it to the childhood days of scribbling a big swirly paper and then coloring in the shapes created by overlapping lines. Remember that?

Dog Days of Summer

©St. Hilaire Nelson 2010
Boxer in progress on portable easel in the vacation house living room

This week I am at the beach in North Carolina, the Outer Banks, with the extended Nelson family. There are 14 of us (8 adults, 6 children) and this is our 11th year coming to Buck Island to rent a big house on the beach. In the last few years I have made a point of taking art with me to work on here.

Creating art on vacation is one of my favorite things to do. I get up early in the morning and come up to my portable stick easel on the top floor of the house. From here I can see the ocean, it's peaceful and beautiful and very inspiring. Usually when I am up painting, most of the other Nelson family is asleep, at least for a little while.

My travel supplies for the beach are much like my travel supplies for the Dance Competition weekends with one exception, here I do not have to work on my lap! I can spread out and work on larger pieces. I can actually stand at the easel, like I am accustomed to at home. Similarly to dressing room projects, I do work out of gallon zip lock bags filled with hand painted paper divided by color, and I do bring my wood panels already under-painted.

This week I actually FORGOT my #8 filbert! I was in a state of panic when I unpacked my supplies to find all but the brush! Thank Goodness art runs in the blood of the Nelson family. My Mother-in-Law had a brush for me to borrow, she said she travels with them "just in case."

Do you have artists in your family? Do you think that artistic ability is hereditary? Both my husband and his mother are excellent artists. My parents were not artists, but I have an uncle who was very artistic in college. I have some of John's student work pottery in my studio.

Take the poll to the left of the Boxer art to give your opinion about Nature vs. Nurture.

Buck Island on Dwellable

Asheville Apple

©St.Hilaire Nelson 2010

Every now and then, I put an original up for grabs on the blog. Here is your chance! This is an 10x10 demo piece that I did while in Asheville, teaching. This collage is on a gallery boxed wood panel, 5/8 inch deep with natural wood edges.

Asheville Apple
SOLD

Music Collages

©St.Hilaire Nelson

Carnival of the Animals is musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Saint-Saëns. It was composed in 1886 while Saint-Saëns was vacationing in a small Austrian village. It was originally scored for a chamber group of flute/piccolo, clarinet, two pianos, glass harmonica, xylophone, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, but it is usually performed today with a full orchestra of strings.

Saint-Saëns, concerned that the piece was too frivolous and likely to harm his reputation as a serious composer, supressed performances of it and only allowed one movelent, Le cygne (The Swan) to be published in his lifetime. Only small private performances were given for close friends.

Saint-Saëns did include a provision which allowed the suite to be published after his death, and it has since become one of his most popular works. It is a favorite of music teachers and young children.

As the title suggests, the work follows a zoological program and progresses from the first movement, Intruduction et marche royale du lion, through portraits of elephants and donkeys to a finale reprising many of the earlier motifs. Several of the movements are of humorous intent.

I was sitting in orchestra rehearsal one night thinking about representing music through visual art when all of a sudden it came to me. Carnival of the Animals would make a great collage series! We had been rehearsing the music for months in preparation for our spring concert, but it took a while to hit me.

There are some wonderfully whimsical poems written by Bruce Adolphe which I will display with each piece of art from each movement of the suite. They will help to tie in the humorous music with the whimsical collage art.

Jacksonville Workshop

©Aurore Brunet
Here is a wonderful piece completed at the Jacksonville Society of Mixed Media Artists Workshop I recently had the pleasure of teaching. Aurore Brunet is actually from the Orlando area, but I had never met her or her friend Clair who also took the workshop.

We had a nice time hanging out and having dinner on Saturday night!

Aurore's collage work really matches her mixed media style of work on her website, and she had hoped to avoid that! She wanted to try "Paper Painting" and come out with something totally different than her own style. It's hard to fight your heart and I told her that it's OK, go with it, embrace it. Why try to be something you are not?

Aurore is doing new work with encaustic now, and she and I both are trying to modify our color palette based on some 2011 design trends. Aurore said "I'm sick of my colors!" Ha ha, and I feel the same way.

I love this piece that she created!

Inspiration From Farm Animals

People here in Florida often ask me "What is your inspiration for the cows and the roosters?" I usually tell them that I grew up in rural New England and leave it at that.

Lately I've been remembering the times my family used to pack up all the stale bread and "heels" and head to Southampton, MA to feed the farm animals at the side of the road. We went in all seasons, even in the snow! This was regular entertainment for us as children, a fun family outing.

I probably never thought that trips to feed the farm animals who RAN to the fence to greet us would stay with me into adulthood and provide inspiration for my collage art. I guess you never know what will stay with you from your childhood. Our parents tried to do things with us that we would enjoy in the moment, maybe never realizing the impact they would have. Although, I'm not sure my brothers are particularly fond of farm animals....

Pictured above, my brother Joe as a baby with my mother, Joe is now 25. The little guy at the fence is my brother Chris who is now 30! These photos were taken in 1985. Part of that proverbial "personal effects box" my father gave me a few years back... he keeps adding to it!

Resting up to Race

Gouldian Finch, in progress ©St. Hilaire Nelson
The day before the race, I tried to relax and not exert myself in the FL heat! I walked the dogs a few times in the morning, but in the afternoon I settled in to the small table top in our RV and worked on a bird for my Carnival of the Animals series.

I packed my portable art bag, the very same one I took to the dance competition. I also packed a 12x12 bird, which was pre sketched and painted on an American Easel Wood Painting Panel, which I primed with clear gesso so that I could leave the wood grain showing.

Portable Art for Small Spaces

Working in small spaces was the theme this weekend as I took my collage supplies back to the dressing room of the Show Stoppers dance competition in Fort Lauderdale.

While my daughter danced her heart out, I was in the audience. However, anyone who has been to a competition weekend knows, there is a lot of down time spent in the locker room.

The key to working in small spaces is to compact your supplies into a workable and portable format.

My Art on the Road Supply List

• Gallon Zip Bags - packed with a wide variety of textures and patterns, divided by color
• One or two old books -  pertinent material to your subject matter
• Bag of Postage Stamps - I collected mine on eBay
• Scrap Box - for all the pieces you tear that are too small to go back in the Zip Bags, keep adding them to the scrap box. I use a shoe sized plastic box with snap lid. Sometimes the scrap box has just the tidbit you are looking for
• Small plastic container - filled with Acrylic Gloss Gel Medium (the glue) and a tight-fitting lid. I keep this inside the scrap box for double protection.
• #8 Filbert synthetic brush, my favorite for glue
• Coffee Cup or other vessel for water - When you have to stop your collage work here and there, it's best to put the brush in water while you are gone, to prevent the glue from drying out
• Tote Bag - hold it all together in something you can throw over your shoulder!
• Small Prepared Panels - I brought three 12x12 wood panels that I had primed with clear gesso and painted  birds on, ready to collage. Keep it to a size that will fit in your lap.

I managed to finish three collages over the weekend from Friday morning to Sunday night. I would be much more efficient if I were in my studio, but I did not have to abandon art making for the weekend, just because I was out of town and away from my studio space. 

We also visited the Boca Raton Museum of Art (Elvis at 21, Photos by Alfred Wertheimer, and remembering Stanley Boxer, A Retrospective) while we were in South Florida, and Gallery Center. I always take the time to visit a gallery or museum when I am in a city away from home. You never know when you will get the chance to go back!

Marketing Makes It!

Celebrations Gallery in Pomfret, CT was chosen by Yankee Magazine's Reader's Choice Poll as top gallery in New England. I was floored when they decided to use my peacock collage as the signature image in their ad announcing this distinction.

How Did I Get Here?

Looking in on Jane, A Portrait of the Artist's Mother

24 x 36, mixed media collage with personal ephemera

I realize that many of my readers may not have been here since the inception of this blog and it was brought to my attention again by a comment made by my friend Mary Elizabeth the other day. She asked me to give a little description of how I became a figurative collage artist. 

It all started out with a scrap box of papers my father gave me about five years ago, he said he had kept them for 30 years and now he was giving them to me. There were cards and notes and papers from all the way back to my mother graduating from nursing school and then giving birth to me. (all seen in the right hand side of the painting, including baby photos of me, and my diaper pin) What does one do with all this "stuff?" Putting the box under my bed seemed anti-climatic, so I tried to think of some way I could use all these papers to create art, something I could enjoy rather than tuck away. 

I went on to create Looking in on Jane, and it won Best of  Show at Orlando Visual Artists League. (My mother is frosting cupcakes in an apron her mother made for her, she was always baking) I was so thrilled with this idea of incorporating papers into paints, that I began expanding and exploring and experimenting until I challenged myself to eliminate the paint, and just create the art with paper. 

My process has been refined as it evolved into the figurative, impressionistic collages I do today. This portrait of my mother, is the original Paper Painting, which plunged me head-first into the pool of possibility that is fine art collage!