Recent Exhibit

In January 2012 Artists' House Gallery in Philadelphia exhibited my most recent work. I am posting several paintings here and explaining a little about how they came about.

Summer in the City 40 x 30 oil on canvas

As the title suggests, this painting depicts a summer afternoon looking at City Hall, in Center City Philadelphia. This is a composition of opposites - trying to portray one of my favorite things about Urban scenes- how they can be massive and stationary, but also teeming with life (the crowd)and creativity(the sculpture and the architecture). I have always been fascinated by Bob Engman's sculpture, "Triune". (NB... He taught at Penn when I was an undergraduate fine arts major, and his daughter and my daughter attended high school together- and are friends). Although I knew I couldn't do his sculpture true justice in a painting, I tried. I liked this particular view on this particular day because not only was City Hall in the background, but a summer celebration was going on with music and crowds... so there was a crowd that  became part of the urbanscape as well. The sculpture in the foreground is modern, City Hall is classical, technically "2nd Empire" and a colossal structure, so there was a nice tension going on between the two.  the actual painting of this piece was very difficult- City Hall may be nicely symmetrical, but it was difficult to achieve a representation that was solid, emphasizing the style and structure while also maintaining the somewhat loose sketch I did on site- one that showed the building's simplicity, when in fact it was complex.

Man Crossing Chestnut Street 6 x 8  oil on board

This little sketch was done on site when I was preparing sketches for a large commission in the Spring of 2011. (see post from April 2011) . I was trying to capture the patterns of shadow on Chestnut Street as it disappeared towards Center City. What first caught my eye was the orange "men working" sign on the right side of the street. I waited for a pedestrian to step up to cross the street at just the right moment so the sign appeared to point to the pedestrian. The other thing I liked about this view was the way it looked as though pedestrians just crossed the street at will, with cars zipping right past them. A reality of urban living, and something I didn't experience as a child. When I came to Philadelphia I thought cars seemed to be aiming at pedestrians- of course they are not, most of them anyway! But it is an example of the fact that people in cars do not always see pedestrians (or bicycles) as people, instead they are simply one of many kinds of roadblocks that get in the way. I find this odd since every driver is also a pedestrian at some point during the day...

Red Corner on Main Street  12 x 24  oil on board

Bright colored awnings are a constant theme in my work. This corner on main St in Manayunk was crying out to be painted... sunshine, shadows, cafe tables with a few people sitting... an orange building and red awnings...

Afternoon Row 24 x24 oil on canvas

This painting was inspired by 2 photographs... one taken by my son's crew coach which captured an amazing view of the city skyline at dusk... a warm orangey glow that I exaggerated... and the other I took of my son's boat- he was in the bow seat of an eight. One thing I love about the sport of rowing is the different colors and patterns created on the water - it is never the same view twice.

to see more of the work in this exhibit, go to January Exibit Artists' House Gallery

Several Exhibits coming up this Fall and Winter-

Schuylkill Boat Reflections 24 x 36  oil on canvas

Anniversary Faculty Exhibition 

Date: Sep 6, 2011 - Sep 23, 2011

Closing Reception: September 23, 6-8 pm

(image at right)
Main Line Art Center

746 Panmure Road Haverford, PA 19041   

   610.525.0272   .more info

C3: Create. Connect. Collect. 
Date: Oct 1, 2011 - Oct 26, 2011 

Preview party October 1^st, 6-8:30, First Friday Opening October 7, 2011

I will have one large painting in this exhibit…

Laundry Reflections in Venice  48 x 48  oil on canvas

(Image at right)  more info

Chestnut Hill Gallery Group Exhibition

October 8, 2011 Opening, check back for details

Open House at Mill Studios

November 5^th, 6^th, 12-5PM both days

January, 2012

Artists’ House Gallery

Recent Work

Opening Sunday January, 8^th, 2012

First Friday Opening January 6^th, 2012

Recent paintings...

Fall on Chestnut - commission completed!

Here is the final painting I have just completed for a downtown Philadelphia Accounting Firm!
and here it is in it's new home:

Directly across from Tony Auth's amazing paintings:

Another painting recently completed:

October light on Arch Street

It was a fall evening in old city when I snapped a picture with my cellphone...  I had no time to sketch and knew the light would only be there for a fleeting few minutes, but I tried to remember what I saw, and used the photo as reference to reproduce it.
I used this painting to demonstrate what can be done in working from photographs in my Large Composition Workshop at the Main Line Art Center in March.

2 small paintings in the Artists' House gallery show, in conjunction with the Philadelphia Music Festival:

Guitar in the Morning,10 x 8
 my son, Peter, doing some strumming

Academy of Music Morning 8x10  sold

Putting together an Urban Composition

I am very excited to begin work on a new commission... A 3' x 6' painting to go in a conference room for a corporate office space downtown.... The client was taken with my painting, "Fall on Chestnut Street"

Fall on Chestnut Street, 36 x 48 oil on canvas

but it was not the right size for their conference room wall. "Can you give us a painting like this, but different... sized to fit our wall?"

This painting was done from sketches and photos taken more than 3 years ago, which I still have, thank goodness, since it is mid-winter, and the fall colors are a long way off. So I went down to 33rd Street to see what I could see and took a number of photos. Here is the current view from 33rd and Chestnut Street:

Notice that the Comcast Center is now in the skyline but a new building is going up on the North corner of the intersection. I thought the view from Market Street might be a better alternative for the painting... it offered the complete skyline, plus a tiny City Hall in the center...

but the client was not interested in this idea. My instructions were- 

1. use the Chestnut Street view

2. make the Comcast Center more visible

3. no cabs, more pedestrians

4. make grassy area on the right more pronounced

5. no construction site

6. not too many cars

7. rich palette with fall colors like the original Fall on Chestnut painting

8. especially like the light and playfulness of the piece

9. Street level more important than background buildings

10. No Drexel Flags, no stoplights impinging on the skyline

hmmmm... back to 33rd Street for more photos.

Here is my initial sketch-

Difficult to get a perspective that works in this wide horizontal format...

My blocked in composition

Submitting this for client approval... stay tuned!

In the meantime, I also did a little sketch from the Market Street perspective...

Crossing Market Street  oil on canvas  12 x 24

NEW Website

Annisquam sunset

I am pleased to announce that I am launching a new website-
Elaine Lisle! It was designed by  Anoki - designer extraordinaire! There may be some minor kinks that need to be worked out, but most of them are from my own need to change and control and nitpick about how to make it look. Anoki did the best he could in putting up with my many requests.
He was recommended to me by my good friend  Marianne Mitchell whose website is another fantastic example of this designer's ability to display artists and their work-- on the web.

Monhegan Interlude

 In September I joined some of my artist friends on Monhegan Island for a brief painting excursion...
Most of them were there for a week, I was just there from Sunday through Wednesday...
 Nancy Bea Miller, Alexandra Tyng, Dianna Ansley and Mary Walsh all rented a house up the hill from the town, and Eliza Auth and I had an efficiency apartment down by the water.

On Sunday afternoon I started this painting down by Fish beach...
above is sketch on site, on the right is the finished painting..

This painting was started Tuesday morning. It was the view from the balcony of our apartment. An elderly couple across the way sat on their deck and discussed everything from the weather on the island to health of the national economy... I finished it in the studio.

Morning Conversations

sketch for "Ferry Arrival"

 Here I am attempting to catch the afternoon light on the docking pier of the island.

Ferry Arrival  11 x 14

2 other artists ... the island was crawling with them!

I ambitiously set up to paint this view of the beach by the fish market... It was incredibly windy and I was freezing in the shade... but I salvaged my painting later in the studio:

Windy morning at Fish Beach  11 x 14

Camphill exhibit at Rosenfeld

Promised I'd post the final images of the paintings I did for "Plein Air for Camphill" (also known as PAC 2010!) For more info on this event, check out
 http://www.camphillspecialschool.org/plein-air/PACGallery2010page1.php

Artist in the Garden  9 x 12 (sold)

Red Tool Shed  8 x 10

Red Umbrella  11 x 14  (sold)