Illustration Friday: atmosphere

My submission for Illustration Friday's "Atmosphere" is a dimensional painting I made for Dee Dee, my sister in 1995. It is wood, formable foam board, acrylic paint and resin. This was a bit of an experiment in several ways, I wanted to go beyond the traditional shapes of paintings and create leaves that give the piece dimension sort of jutting out curving around and also by painting part of the leaf on the surface to add a faux visual continuity for the eye. I made a few of these round layered pieces and really enjoyed this look. This flower girl is saying "I like the air up here". What does it mean? I don't know it was just fun to make, love the colours and I like it :) sorry about the glaring white spot, I took this picture at my Mom's house. She has an entire room dedicated to my art and it is a Valerie Gallerie of sorts and this was sitting up on a shelf so I did the best I could because I frankly had completely forgotten about this image.

I am not sure if they make this foam board anymore I bought a ton of it and you could wet it and it would form easier into shapes that I wanted to make. I never see it anymore so I imagine it was not so popular, but it worked for me. I have found through the years that when I like a product I buy a lot of it because many art supplies tend to get discontinued...

Illustration Friday: Star gazing

I have created hundreds of paintings in my 30+ years as an artist that feature or incorporate stars. This image was commissioned by a very close friend and she looked at my portfolio and chose to have me make a bridge painting that would include her husband, son and herself in the buildings. She likes very soft muted colours which is always a challenge as I tend to be quite colourful :) Yes this is subtle and subdued for me... She really loved the softness and the pastel quality of this and it is large and one of my layered dimensional paintings with resin. I did this in 2000 and I am always happy to paint something special for someone I care about. It is called "connection to love" and it is my submission for Illustration Friday's "Star gazing" theme.
valerie walsh 2000

Illustration Friday: artificial

My submission for Illustration Friday's "artificial" theme is a facade called Home Front. This is a tough word for a homemaker :) I thought of a house in Florida with all the pink flamingos out in front but this has been done a million times or maybe an artificially sweetened Gingerbread House but I posted the real sweet kind before ;) I decided on this idea, as you can see; I finished down to the wire because I am working on other stuff but the idea is reminiscent of the old saloon type buildings propped up in the back.

art and photos valerie walsh 2010