Winter Trees

Welcome to 2021! We’re less than two weeks into it, and things already feel crazy. I wondered what to expect to see falling out of the sky, so I checked the Seattle Weather Blog. Did you know that Seattle has already had 5” of rain this year? No wonder that’s what I’ve been painting! It’s one of my favorite things to paint. Car headlights and streetlights reflect off the wet streets at night like Las Vegas neon swimming in a pool.

Slow Snap: Painting Still Life in the Age of Instagram

Googling ‘still life blogs’ summons a list of photographic blogs, written blogs, as well as a few blogs about oil painting. The term ‘still life’ refers to a drawing, painting, or photograph of an arrangement of one or more non-living objects. In French, they are known as nature morte, dead nature.

I began my foray into still life painting to visualize what diatoms would look like on land. Diatoms are microscopic organisms that live in the ocean and photosynthesize. They are the base of the marine food web, an ocean analogue for plants.

Still Life With Glasses Red Yellow Green 14" x 11" Oil on Panel 2020 © Liz Ewings

What would diatoms look like on land? I have photos of them taken under a microscope. Their appearance changes dramatically with different lighting, so they would probably look completely different out of the water. But like what? The exterior of a diatom is made of glass, and inside are colored pigments used for photosynthesis. Glasses filled with colored water seem like the best available proxy. I used a completely blank light colored paper background to separate the colors of the reflections and shadows from everything else.

Reflections of colored light on other glasses and in their shadows fascinate me. I added a plastic bottle half filled with colored water to see the difference in texture and reflectivity between glass and plastic.

Still Life With Overlap 11" x 14" Oil on board. 2020 © Liz Ewings

Once I noticed how the colors played off other glasses, I thought it would be interesting to line the glasses up and look through them at the transparency. And because the interplay between the objects is interesting. And aren’t relationships the only thing that really matters to humans?

Is an iPhone photograph of a painting of glasses of colored water. Is that a meta still life? Second derivative of a still life? Or just a really slow snap?

Making Underwater Videos from a Surfboard

The plankton that I paint in my work I collect on oceanography cruises and photograph under a microscope at the University of Washington. Since cruises have been restricted due to Covid-19, I am getting creative. I took a GoPro with me out on Puget Sound near the Ballard Locks and recorded underwater video to see what waves look like from below.

I came across a few challenges the first time out! How do you hold a camera on a floaty stick and paddle at the same time? I carried it in my mouth like a labrador retriever. Puget Sound water, yum!

Next, how do I talk to myself without looking like a total idiot? Somewhat harder to solve. Maybe next time I will leave the chatting part out. Let me know what you think! I especially love the part where I got distracted by a seal. I tried to get it in the video, but I totally missed. Talking and taking pictures at the same time is harder that it looks.

It was worth it! I love the images looking up at the waves, and I look forward to making paintings of them.

I am close to completing 100 Paintings of Plankton. This is number 82, I’m getting close! It’s available in my online shop. Hey, that’s more news! I have an online store! Come visit!

AND, I have some of my larger pieces on Saatchi Art. Including this one, Photic Zone. Check it out here: SaatchiArt.com/LizEwings

100 Paintings of Plankton

For the past three years I have been working on 100 Painting of Plankton. As of yesterday, I am up to number eighty-six. I feel close to acheiving something.

My initial plan was to make one hundred square paintings on panels. Maybe some multi-panel paintings. I would figure it out as things progressed.  I began working from videos I found online and from photographs of foraminiferans taken by a professor from marine science grad school in Mississippi.

 I wanted my own photographs to work from, so I started keeping Puget Sound plankton samples that I collected on ocean teaching cruises. I begged favors from scientist friends at the University of Washington so I could bring my plankton in to the ocean teaching labs.  They have to be photographed under a Zeiss light microscope and are at their most photogenic while still alive. I also photographed any living plankton I could get from other scientists going on research cruises.

Plankton 81 Graceful copepod appendages

The watercolors began as preliminary sketches for larger paintings, then took on a life of their own. I love their diverse morphology, and the negative spaces between aggregations of organisms. Wet on wet watercolor application gives the paintings a flowing watery quality that evokes marine organisms in their own environment.

And, I love the format of making 4” x 4” square paintings of one thing. I feel like one hundred paintings are enough to begin to explore the format. It’s like a visual version of a haiku.

Square Deal 50 Artists for a Fair Vote

Guess what! I’m participating in Square Deal 50 Artists for a Fair Vote. 50 artists each made an 8” x 8” square painting and donated it for the Movement Voter Project. For a $100 donation to the Project, you get to pick the painting of your choice.

The Movement Voter Project (MVP) raises funds nationwide to support the best and most promising grassroots organizations in key swing states, with a focus on youth and communities of color. MVP vets and supports hundreds of incredible groups that fight voter suppression, get out the vote, swing elections, win on issues, and organize in their communities.

Link to the Gallery of Beautiful Paintings:
http://57biscayne.com/square-deal/

Link to Donate:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/big5?refcode=WA090320