Illustration Friday

In case you are here due to my blogger link you may now find my 'Illo Friday' posts HERE.
Thanks... and keep creating!

I've Moved....

This is just to let whomever may stop by here know... I have officially moved to a new web site.
Having recently moved from Fl. to Pa., it was time for a change of direction with my blogging also.

If this is your first time here, please scroll down the page and see what it is I do in the wee hours of the morning.

If you see something you'd like as a print, or if you are interested in an original, please email me at my new web site.

Thank you for all your support, and wonderful comments on my art, and you may now visit me at
http://shadesofjoan.typepad.com/

Hope to see you soon...
joan

Illustration Friday... 'Red'

After far too long of an absence from IF challenges, I finally felt inspired by this week's challenge of 'Red'. The first thing that came to mind for me was Asian culture. The beauty and complexity of their textiles and decor... so much red.

And then I thought about a young asian woman, and wondered how strong her connection could possibly be to just such a color. I envisioned her seeking 'westernization', and that was the inspiration for this piece titled "Red... American Style".

She is so strikingly beautiful, but once you look beyond her incredibly colored hair, one has to wonder if those blue eyes are contact lenses... if her perfect lips are attributed to injections... has she fed into the media image of what a woman must look like... Or is she just naturally this beautiful.

I think that regardless of such speculation, she exudes an air of beauty, and passion, and everything else the color red conjures in our imaginations.

She is 8x10 done completely in watercolors on Fabriano cold pressed archival paper.

Thanks for stopping by, it has been far too long, and I hope she stirs something in you as she has in me.

Until next time...

Illustration Friday... 'Wind'

This piece is titled "She turned her back on the winds of change"

Hmmm... I'm a firm believer that there are times in our lives when a little denial is a good thing indeed. I will probably edit this post in the next day or so. I will have to gaze upon her unaware for awhile to see what secrets she may be willing to share. Every picture really does tell a story now doesn't it.

Okay, not quite certain of her dimensions... 7x7 would be my guess.

Painted (yes painted, not a digitally altered photo) on 140 lb. Arches watercolor paper done in a combination of Winsor Newton Watercolor Paints and Neocolor II Watersoluble oil pastels.

I will be forever grateful to Teesha Moore for sharing her art journal techniques on her site, she uses Neocolor II pastels. I decided I had to try them and now I'm HOOKED.

Incredible to say the least... you use them like crayons and then go over them with a wet paintbrush... glorious stuff!

Today may we all be brave enough to face our own winds of change.

Until next time...

Black and Orange Entry

Okay, no time to paint an original for the Black and Orange challenge this month, so I thought maybe I could alter my latest IF entry enough to make it worthy of posting.

So here she is, my "Haunted by Memories" painting that I uploaded into printshop (how archaic) changed her hues and added a black background effect.

Not innovative, but nice just the same!

Until next time...

Illustration Friday... 'ghost'

So this is my offering for this week's IF challenge. I call this piece "Haunted by Memories".

I was hesitant to post this as I could not for the life of me get the colors right when I scanned the image... It were almost as if the painting would have preferred anonymity.... hmmmm.

I saw a black and white photograph of this girl a couple of months ago and honestly felt as if she were beckoning me somehow. I found myself going back and looking at her often, I was so perplexed by her face. I couldn't gauge her age, or even the era she was in... all I knew was I was transfixed by how hauntingly beautiful she was. Her gaze is so deep and penetrating, and she looks as if she has lived a hundred lifetimes.

I decided to paint her in shades of purple and blue, but it is hard to decipher the colors here... I apologize for that.

She is 8x10 painted in watercolor and Neo colorII watersoluble pastels on 140lb. Arches cold pressed paper. I hope you find her as hauntingly beautiful as I did.

Until next time...

Illustration Friday... smitten

Okay... this one is a total departure from what I usually paint.

When I saw that this week's theme was 'smitten' I was immediately a tad uncomfortable.

Websters defines smitten as "strongly and suddenly affected". When I read that definition I was instantly hurled back in time to a place of being 'smitten'. And then I began to reflect on what that truly entails. Love struck, infatuated, hormonal, surreal...

It is rose colored glasses and feelings that are magnified about 1000%... the sun shines brighter, the birds sing louder, even the air seems to dance upon your skin in celebration of all the wonderful things you are experiencing due to 'Love'. You want to shout from the rooftops and dance in the streets... and in your heart you pray that it will last forever.

So with respect to all that being 'smitten' induces in us I am offering up "The many colors of a heart gone wild".

Does she look smitten to you? She surely looks smitten to me... and dreamy, and love struck, and swept away to a place where she prays she may never return from.

I wanted to depict all of the roller coaster emotions of love with color.

This piece measures 8x10 and was done in watercolor, pastel, and neocolorII.

And it is my wish that we all forever remain 'smitten'.

Until next time...

Artwords challenge #23

This painting was done specifically for this weeks 'artwords' challenge.

It is titled "When you look at me..."

When you look at me, do you see what I see?...

Do you look beyond my chestnut skin... go much deeper, look within

To see a woman who's thoughts run deep, and who's heart runs deeper still

A woman of strength and kindness and love...

A woman with an iron will

A woman so proud of who she is and all that she has done

Or do you look at me and see much more, and then feel the need to run...

When you look at me, just look at me

and see all that I am ... woman, sister, a kindred soul

Someone you may call 'friend'.

This piece is 8"x8" on Arches watercolor paper.

It was done in watercolor, pastel and archival ink.

And here's a thumbnail if you'd like a closer look.

Thanks for stopping by to view my art... I hope you enjoy it enough to visit often.

Illustration Friday... 'Trouble'

My offering this week is entitled "21st Century Vampire"

This challenge was tough for me... I spent 3 days waiting for inspiration... and nothing came. So I started skimming through magazines and fell upon this beautiful image of a young man. He was startlingly handsome, and had an almost angelic quality to him, which to me just screamed 'trouble'. You know the old saying "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is..."

I was certain women would look upon him and 'get it'... could see that longing for anyone this beautiful could definitely spell trouble... but I thought there needed to be just a little more 'something' to convey the theme. So... seeing it IS October, I thought it fitting to add a bit of a creepy element that would not detract from his beauty. Of course, the optimum addition was the slight visibility of a fang protruding from his lip. Sigh, what young woman isn't swept off her feet by the romanticism of a '21st Century Vampire'??

Here's a thumbnail in case you'd like to see a larger image...

Until next time... Joan

Cotton candy strands of summer...

Seeing I'm 'stuck' on my latest art challenge, I thought I'd stop and share a little something else.

This is the time of year when I miss New England terribly. The season as it changes from summer and prepares for winter is what I miss most every single year.

You see, down here in balmy Florida we have no Autumn, sigh. And it always leaves me just the teensiest bit melancholy. I would give almost anything to just be raking crimson colored piles of leaves in anticipation of swan diving into a glorious mountain of them and then gleefully having to begin all over again... this simplest of pleasures my 3 year old and my 14 year old sons have never experienced, and that saddens me.

I say all this only because this evening is the first 'cool' evening we will be having since maybe March. I just stepped outside to let the dog out for the last time today and was startled, and then filled with anticipation of the coming cold... tonight will be the first one in many months where we can open a window and not have to worry about the central air kicking on as we slumber. This photograph is one I captured recently while floating in the pool at twilight with my littlest one. These cotton candy strands of summer are rare here... and I just couldn't let the moment pass by where it would barely be a memory come morning. All of you who are bundled up in sweaters and winter socks... you are in the midst of a miraculous time of year where Mother Nature is revelling in her flamboyance and you are the lucky few who hold tickets to her sold out show... please write and let me know how incredible her performance is going, I'm certain she deserves every standing ovation.

Longing for a ticket to the show.... Joan

Illustration Friday... 'Quiet'

Here is my latest offering ... it is for Illustration Friday and

the piece is titled "She dwells in a blanket of quiet".

When I decided to paint this piece my intent was for her eyes to convey

a watery depth that would be interpreted as stillness and quiet.

I love the fact that her age is elusive... is she a young teenaged girl,

or is she a woman who has already endured too much hardship in her life?

And why so quiet? Is she just dwelling in silence as a learned defense mechanism,

or is it possible that she was simply born mute.

Whatever her circumstance... she has chosen to blanket herself in 'quiet'.

She is safe here in this stillness, much like a baby in a womb.

Perhaps one day she will find her voice, or could it be that her silence

resonates more loudly than any words ever could...

This piece is done in watercolor and pastel and measures 8x8

Which seems to be the size I favor at the moment.

It is an original painting on 140 lb. Arches watercolor paper.

After the painting was complete I scanned it into Printshop and added

a 'plastic wrap' filter to give the piece a truer feeling of blanketing.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Your comments are always welcome, and thank you for visiting.

Until next time... Joan

Artwords #21 theme: 'Miniature'

This is my 'Ode to Modi'

Title: "She would have given her left arm for one more day with Modi"

After seeing the movie 'Modigliani' about the life of Italian Expressionist painter

Amedeo Modigliani, I was moved to paint this little rendition of one of his most famous paintings.

(Andy Garcia 's portrayal of Modigliani is so beautiful, and so heartbreaking that I highly recommend this film to anyone with the spirit of an artist.)

This piece is painted in acrylics on a 6x6 gallery wrapped canvas. The difference between this miniature rendition and the original is that when he painted it he included her left arm...

I ommited her left arm and replaced it with her broken heart... hence the title "She would have given her left arm for one more day with Modi". What follows is the tragic story the movie was based upon...

Amedeo Modigliani was a Jewish/Italian Expressionist Painter in the early 1900's. He, like most painters back then, was poor, depressed, and on any given day either alcohol or drug abusing. He would sit in Cafe's and argue with Pablo Picasso mercilessly for hours over bottles of Absinthe. He was angry and brooding because he felt the art world didn't understand or accept him or his paintings.
When he was 33 years old he met and fell in love with a young French/Catholic Painter by the name of Jeanne Hebuterne (she was only 19 years old). They fell madly in love, and she became pregnant and bore him a daughter whom they named 'jeanne modigliani'. Her parents disowned her for being with a derelict, drunken, Jewish painter, and tried endlessly to have the child taken away from her.

As time passed Modi painted dozens of pictures of her, and when he found out she was pregnant with their second child, he asked her to marry him. As the story goes he was very sick with not only drug and alcohol related sicknesses but also Tubercular Meningitis. They believe it was the Tuberculosis which he finally succumbed to on Jan 24, 1920, and he died the very week of his largest gallery unveiling...

The most tragic part of the whole thing, is that Jeanne Hebuterne was so overcome with grief after his death, that she was whisked away back to her parents home in France. She felt she could not survive without her beloved Modigliani, and two days after Modi's death, she purposely walked backwards out of a balcony 5th floor window of her parents home, where she fell to her death taking her unborn child's life with her.

Here is a picture of the original painting if you would like to compare it with my rendition.

I hope you liked this offering... it is one of my favorites.

Until next time... Joan