Elaine Lisle

Recent Exhibit

2012-03-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

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-

2011-07-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-04-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

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)

Back to Still Life

2010-09-20T14:21:00.000-07:00

Apples & Pears wtih Plant, 12 x 16

I took a workshop with Christine Lafuente in March. I love the looseness and freshness of her compositions. Sometimes the interactions with artists in a workshop situation can help get you out of a hole with your work. As a teacher, it is also helpful to see how others run workshops to help tune up your own teaching process. This painting, done in the workshop, is certainly looser than my typical style, but lots of room for more...

So I started to work on the fruit in the studio...

Two Pomegranites, 8x10

I loved the planes of light and color I found in these pomegranites. This painting will be in the Wayne Art Center's Feast for the Eyes exhibit, opening October 24, 2010.

Apples & Pears with Pitcher, 16 x 20

Peppers, 8x10

Three Pears 9 x 12

Plein Air at Camphill

2010-08-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

On Saturday August 7, I was privileged to be part of Nancy Bea Miller's 2nd annual "Plein Air for Camphill" day of art... http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=12827&id=130988316937820&ref=mf

More than 50 artists worked on paintings on the 80 acre campus of the Camphill school for special needs' kids, and the results will be on exhbit at the Rosenfeld Gallery on Tuesday October 5th. Last year the event was a mob scene, with more than 100 pieces of art sold. Nancy has done a fantastic job of coordinating this effort for the 2nd year in a row. She is a fantastic artist herself and mother of an autistic son who attends the school. Her website: http://www.genrecookshop.com/nbm/index.html and blog: http://nancybnews.blogspot.com/
I began 3 paintings on site which I will post here when they are finished!

2010-06-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

Contrasts in Paris................I'm not sure this painting is finished as yet. I have been fiddling with the figure in the foreground, my son Peter, because my daughter pointed out that his butt was too big, (see below in the earlier version). I also removed the orange section of sidewalk because I thought it was distracting from the rest of the composition... in any case it is still not finished!

More Italian Market............I recently made 2 trips down to the Italian Market, one of my favorite painting locations in the city. Here are some of my recent studies-
Watermelons on 9th Street 8 x 10

Lobsters & Crabs 14 x 11

Men at the Market 9 x 12

Anthony's Cafe 8 x 10

Most of these will be part of my upcoming exhibit at Artists' House in October...

Landscape into Abstraction

2010-05-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased to be one of the artists selected by Marianne Mitchell, artist and curator of
"Landscape into Abstraction" exhibit at the Chester Springs studio in June. The Opening is June 6th, which I will unfortunately be unable to attend... The painting above will be included in the exhibit... It is "Winter Tree Shadows" 30x40, oil on canvas. It resembles my parents' backyard in Connecticut, (where I grew up) on a winter evening...

Art of the State

2010-05-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

One of my paintings was selected to be part of the "Art of the State" Pennsylvania 2010 exhibition at the State Museum in Harrisburg, June 27- September 12, 2010.

Boathouses at dusk

2010-04-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

This is a plein air sketch I had done last spring- down at the boathouses.

The crew teams from all the local highschools were returning en masse when I took this photo:

I decided to use this composition as reference for a larger painting. I taught a 4-week workshop - "Large Composition " at the Main Line Art Center in March where I showed the group how I worked through each stage of the painting making changes along the way.

Here is the initial sketch...

and the final painting! 30" x 40" This will most likely be part of my October show at Artists' House Gallery

Trains

2010-03-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here's the first painting I did in the new studio... from a sketch and photo taken in Jim Thorpe, PA in the fall... Two trains sitting off the track that caught by eye.

New Studio

2010-03-19T18:06:00.000-07:00

March, 2010
I have been told I MUST start a blog if I want to improve my visibility as an artist, so here goes...

So I am writing for fans of my art...if you are reading this, I hope that's what you are! I plan to post interesting perspectives on what I'm working on, like how I decide what to paint, news on shows and workshops offered...

I moved my studio back to the Mill in Manayunk in February... (where I was for 15 years before moving to East Falls for 2 years, then regrouping and working at home for the past year.) I love it! It's great because it's on the 1st floor, no more steps to lug things up and down! About 300 sf, decent north light. I installed halogen track lighting and built a new work table. Nothing like new space and new furniture to get the creative juices flowing...