ARTIST LINDA TILLMAN

ABSTRACTS, TROPICALS AND A LONG HOT SUMMER!

2007-08-27T05:22:00.000-07:00

Calling this a "Daily" blog may be a bit hard to keep up with. The internet is a great resource, but it takes a lot of time away from painting. Just to catch up, I've been working on more poured abstracts and big tropical leaves.

I did a big purple elephant ear composition that has a new, sort of "night time in the jungle" feel to it. It already has bids on eBay, so I have to say "it works!". Purple is a color that I find people who love it are very dedicated to having everything purple. I think it is a great accent color that perks up a neutral colored room.

I'm adding to my skills with poured paint. The angel cake cutter is working great and so is a spray bottle of water. I got some metallic paints last week, too, and they add a lot of interest to the marbling. I want to add a few more to my portfolio and then start working with the technique as a background on some of my botanicals.

The new web site is all cleaned up and running well, including the shopping cart...hooray! I've got to get busy and add the new paintings. I sent out some snail mail brochures over the weekend, too.

Oona is still having her heat and we are now in the "flagging" stage, which means I have to keep her and Traveler separated. It is not as hard as I imagined, since they are both very respectful of the baby gate and don't try to push it down to get to each other. That was a relief. The worst thing is that they are so unhappy being separated. I try to rotate which on is alone and which one is with me, so they don't get too frustrated, but Traveler cries a lot and didn't eat or sleep much the first three or four days. I gave him a plate of scrambled eggs and toast on Sunday because I was worried that he was looking thin. Hopefully this will be over by Labor Day.

Labor Day! How could it be here already?! I better get the new paintings posted below and get back to work.

Linda

ANOTHER NEW ONE!

2007-08-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post today because I am moving right along with some new paintings and don't want to loose my momentum. Below is one that I finished last night.

Linda

NEW PAINTINGS...MOVING RIGHT ALONG

2007-08-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

I got two new paintings finished and listed yesterday and am moving along with a couple more today. I'm trying to get myself into a daily routine of accomplishment. One of the paintings is a botanical, The Poetry of Leaves", done in my developing botanical style... this one has a more unusual layout than some of the others. The other one is the result of my first experimentation with drip and spatter abstracts that I talked about in my previous posting. I have a lot to learn and a lot more experimenting to do, but I think this one is quite presentable. I'm very pleased with the marble technique using the angel cake cutter. I put it up on eBay as a featured listing to let the art buyers know that I'm doing some work in that style...and because I think abstract paintings get lost easily as regular listings. Anyway, this is the first day of the auction and it already has a "watcher" and quite a few hits. That is encouraging. I had so much fun doing it that I really want to have success selling it so I can do some more! I have posted the two new paintings below for my blog readers to see and comment. There is a close up of the marbling technique below the abstract painting.

I'm working on a couple of very large botanicals today. One will be in an unusual color combination of purple and turquoise. Hopefully I will have photos to show tomorrow.

Oona got her heat this morning. It has only been 5 months since the last one, so I'm not so thrilled. We're in the "maxy pad" stage now and for the next ten days, so I don't have to worry about her and Traveler having any little accidents...yet. It's the ten days after that when she will have to go and stay with Dale and Penny (the breeders) while she is "flagging". That is a term, for those of you who are not familiar with doggie courtship, that refers to the time when the female is ready and willing to mate. It starts after the bleeding stops and is the hell on wheels time of trying to keep the two dogs apart. Never a dull moment!

Linda

NEW ABSTRACT

2007-08-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

I' almost ready to photograph an abstract painting that I did last Friday. I've been playing around with some of the drip and spatter techniques that are very popular with decorators right now. I did a lot of looking around on the web and in books to find out about the techniques that are being used on these types of paintings, but did not find much info. So, I got some of the soft bodied acrylics and decided to wing it. I did find some info about making and using a fork like scraper to manipulate the paint. There were all kinds of suggestions to jerry rig a usable device, and I thought...these folks don't cook! What you need to do this is an angel food cutter! I just happened to have one and it worked great. I was able to get all these cool marbled effects with pured paint by scraping the angel cutter through the wet paint. It was fast, fun and very messy. I'm going to have to rethink my studio layout if I do a lot of these. The first one looks pretty good for being so experimental. I'm going to touch it up a bit now that it is dry and list it later this afternoon to see what happens. I have some other, more controlled ideas for abstracts that I want to get started on later in the week, too.

I'll be posting photos later in the day when I have them ready.

Oh, and the dinner party was a success. The guests liked the food, the dogs were well behaved and I got to know some of my neighbors better. Can't do better than that!

Linda

THE WEEK GOT BY ME!

2007-08-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

This week was full of odds and ends and some more new paintings. It got by me before I realized I had not had time to post to my blog.

I had a lot of trouble with the glazing techniques that I have been experimenting with and have scrapped a couple of canvases and re stretched them to start fresh. I'm learning that "less is more" with the number of glaze layers. They start to get streaky and chalky looking if there are too many layers.

Oona has gone to the dog show this weekend with Dale. She usually wins the breed and comes home with lots of ribbons. This show is here in Greensboro, so I will go over and see her compete on Sunday morning and then bring her home. Traveler misses her, and so do I.

I'm having a few neighbors in on Sunday for a cook out. I'm going to do game hens on the grill.
I call them "Lime Butt Hens", because I take a lime and wrap some herbs around it and stuff it into the hen. As it cooks, the lime releases juice and keeps the inside of the hens moist and fragrant from the herbs. It is a variation of my "Lemon Butt Chicken" recipe that I do in the oven in a roasting pan. A lemon is too big to fit in the game hens, so I use a lime instead. Try it!

Here are the new paintings. I used a dry brush technique at the end to put the white onto the Magnolia painting. I gives a softened look that I think is quite pleasing. I'm off to work on another. I'd like to get it done and listed today.

Linda

NEW PAINTING ALMOST FINISHED

2007-08-03T05:58:00.001-07:00

By the end of the day yesterday I had the big elephant ear canvas almost done. I just want to tweek it a little this morning and then get it listed. I am really pleased with the result. The light background an colors that I used are completely different than any that I have done before and the huge size of the canvas, 31 x48 is very impressive. Working on the big canvas is a little tricky, though. I don't like to work at an easel...I like the painting down flat, so I have to do a lot of reaching over wet paint. Good thing I'm tall and have long arms! I hang them up at the end and put some of the final touches on with the painting upright. I will post some photos of it later this afternoon when I take the shots for the listing, so you all can see what you think.

Next I'm going to start a the under painting for a couple of others and then work on the Passions painting that I started on Wednesday. That one will take a few days of layering the paint. I also sold four paintings on eBay yesterday, so I have some final glazing to do this morning so I can ship them out this afternoon before the weekend.

I'm planning to paint most of the weekend, except for some yard work and house keeping chores. The weather here is quite muggy, so it's a good time to be in the basement studio. I invited some of my neighbors in for a cookout next Sunday, so next weekend I will be busy preparing for that.

Linda

A VERY BUSY DAY!

2007-08-02T05:05:00.000-07:00

I just looked at my eBay listings this morning and I have four paintings that will be sold by the end of the day. That is great news, since summer is a very slow time for sales, but it means I need to get going today and finish up some paintings. Fortunately, I got a good start yesterday. All of the under painting on the new "Passions" painting is done and the backgrounds are painted on two more giant leaf canvases. I did a light colored background on the largest one and I am really liking it. You can really see the brush strokes and the color variation. I was going to do purple elephant ears, but I'm going to try to get the feeling of purple using more browns and taupes...if that makes any sense.

This will be a short posting this morning, since I need to get busy. Thursday is a good listing day on eBay, so I want to try and have something finished to put up for auction tonight.

Linda

FINALLY, A DAY OF PAINTING!

2007-08-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

I'm going to get started on some new paintngs this morning, yea. My new web site is going well. The server should have it up later today and then its just the changes to the shopping cart system. I say "just", those can be a real hassle. It sometimes takes days, even weeks of back and forth with the shopping cart creator to get all the kinks ironed out. Hopefully it won't take too much time out of each day.

I've got a new layout ready for a painting in the Passions of Nature series. Those take a few days to complete because of the glazing techniques that I am experimenting with. The leaves have a mosaic patterning make up of various colors on a ground shade that becomes the veins in the leaves. The background is a very impressionistic melding of colors, almost like clouds. I start with very strong, contrasting raw colors for each area and then start adding tinted glazes over the top. The glazing brings the two areas of the painting into harmony with each other and creates a richness in the overall look of the canvas. The finishing touch is to bing a few colors back out from under the glaze by repainting them on top of the glaze as accent colors. I will get the under painting done today.

I also have a drawing in progress for another huge elephant ear leaf painting. These "ears" will be purple instead of green, so I will do a whole new color story for this one. I want to try and really loosen up my technique on this one and make it very brush strokey and bold. I have some elephant ears growing in my backyard that I planted last year and am using as "models" for the painting. They are quite amazing, although you have to water them daily. I think I may get some of the purple ones for another area of the yard next year. They are a great huge bulb and you plant them very early in the spring...even as early as February.

Today I'm attaching a couple of my funky Flat-Coat paintings. These are very personal, since the models are my own two Flat-Coated Retrievers, Traveler and Oona. I've attached their picture, too, along with my two cats Fred and Ethel so you can get to know the whole family. That's Fred's rear in the second painting! I listed both of these paintings on eBay one day when I was short of listings. I didn't think anyone would be interested in them. Much to my surprise, they both sold and there was a bidding war for the one called "Doggie Discourse" and I ended up getting a very high price for it. It went to a lovely woman in Tasmania Australia, who I know is enjoying it very much. That made me feel better, because I was actually planning on keeping them. Art is to share. It is better for me, as an artist, to sell them and move on.

DAY TWO...MORE WEB PROGRAMMING!

2007-07-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

I made great progress yesterday. I'm ready to call the server this afternoon and have them put the new domain name on my site files and move my old site to a blind page with a redirect. (I have a little business called The Scotty Maloney Company, where I design and market knitting kits. It is a cottage business that I don't have a whole lot of time for any more, but it runs itself and makes a little money, so I'm leaving it in place for now.) I got all my bio info written and added to the site and my eBay store. I'm looking at a new listing service, too, called Activa. It is free and seems to have a good rep. I've been using Auction Hawk, but I'm not all that happy with their service...a lot of glitches in their page lister.

I'm really looking forward to getting all this web clerical stuff done and getting back to PAINTING! I'm hoping to sketch out some new paintings this afternoon. I got several big canvases stretched yesterday morning, so I'm ready to start. I'm going to start a very large tropical leaf composition and another in my Passions of nature series. I'm experimenting with layered glazes in that series and getting a lot of interesting color effects. I'm also anxious to start some abstracts...based on botanical shapes, of course.

Traveler and Oona (my dogs) are relaxing in the back yard this morning. I dumped the old water out of their kiddy pool and refilled it, so they have been dipping and drinking the new water. Flat Coats love water!

The peach trees that I planted last spring have ripening peaches on them now. We had a bad frost on Easter weekend that destroyed some of them, but a few survived. I've been eating one every day for the past few days. Both trees were supposed to be Albertas, but one has white peaches, so I think it must have been mis marked at Home Depot. I find that happens a lot. The white peaches are good, though, and the tree is pretty.

Here are a few more of my recent paintings. Maybe in a day or two I will have some of the new ones ready to talk about.

WELCOME! This is my blog grand opening!

2007-07-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog post, so bear with me! I hope to get my feet wet this week with some "test blogging". I'm also uploading my new website, artistlindatillman.com this week. I'm only mildly dangerous with html, so I anticipate some frustration and a few glitches. Hopefully, I will hit stride by the end of the summer and will have an interesting post each day.

This blog is about my ART, and my LIFE. I will be previewing paintings here and talking about my painting process and influences. As this is a daily process, I will also be talking about other things going on in my life. My two Flat-Coated Retrievers, Traveler and Oona will be featured frequently along with some photos, info and links about this fabulous breed. I also have two mixed breed cats, Fred and Ethel who will make these pages from time to time. I love cooking and hope to share some recipes as well as some gardening tips, and, well...cunundrums...as I am an beginner at gardening.

But mainly I will be talking about my art. My current focus is on big leafy botanicals. I like to work in a loose, expressionistic style and let the paint do as much of its own thing as possible. Some of my friends (who are not artists themselves), who have seen me do some more realistically rendered works (my commercial projects for the Home Textiles industry), are wondering why I'm doing "those big sloppy leaves". To them I say, "This is Art, not illustration". This is about creating something with beauty and expression, not simply depicting something as it really is.

The shapes of leaves an flowers are really magnificent and endlessly different, one from another. The potential to experiment with color and strokes within this subject is enormous. Here are a few images of some of my recent paintings on this theme. Since I am going to be tied up with web programming most of this week, I will try and give some more background info on my work in this week's postings.

Thanks for hanging with me in these early days.