Backwards Designing

For most people, myself included, choosing a piece of art for the walls of your home is often the cherry on top, the last touch, or, sometimes, the afterthought of designing dwelling spaces. The color of the walls, the area rug, and the coffee table are all things that are the first to be checked off the list. But when trying to find the perfect piece of art to complete the room, there are so many fixed variables that the art has to accommodate if it’s the last thing chosen.

I came across this Wall Street Journal article that takes a different approach to interior design. Instead of starting with trim, paint colors, couches, and accent tables, these homeowners started with their art. They had a piece, or a collection of pieces, of art that they had to have in their home, but wanted to be absolutely certain that it fit in with the design of the rest of the house. Every detail, such as the lighting, the layout, and even the ceiling height was all determined from the specifics of the artwork. Some of the art collections were so precious, they even installed individual security systems for each artwork, like in a museum.

THE PROCESSElizabeth SageJuly 30, 2018 Comment

Meet My Painting: 'Day Dreaming'

Each painting has a personality and a life of its own. I’m here to introduce you to one of my favorites!

We all dream of somewhere else. Whether it’s somewhere we’ve been, or somewhere we frequently return to, where we are now often isn’t where we want to be. Thankfully, paintings like ‘Day Dreaming’ can take us there as soon as we lay eyes on it. This seems to be a quintessential “Elizabeth” painting for a few reasons: the wide and narrow format, the big sky, and the loose interpretation of the land. There is texture and depth in the sky that signify movement and the fleeting nature of the light in this moment. The subtle shifts in color that add visual interest and depth to the sky, from a cobalt blue to a turquoise-y teal, each layer building upon the last.

The wide dimensions of the canvas are my favorite to work with for many reasons. The wide format of the painting has an ability to allow me to capture a range of moments on the canvas, rather than just one. And if you have never experienced the expanse of a Texas sky, this sized painting is the next best thing. On the far right, you can see the sun hanging onto the sky, fading into the horizon, illuminating that side of the painting with its warmth. As you progress to the left, the light changes the land, but in a softer, more subtle way.

THE STUDIOElizabeth SageJuly 26, 2018painting, collectionComment

Ice Cream & Consistency

A while back I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that interviewed Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. I had just had some of her ice cream at her store in Nashville, so it seemed rather serendipitous that I was now reading an interview with her. What I loved most about what she had to say was how she approaches food with simplicity, and lets the flavors shine. She doesn't try to do anything crazy, she just amplifies what is already there. Her investment in simplicity is so attractive, and something I need to apply to my life and my art practice.

Another great article I keep coming back to is Maxie McCoy's guest post on Carly the Prepster on the topic of consistency as the key to growth. Even when I don’t want to, or I’d rather just stay in bed and lounge all morning, I MUST get up, go to my studio, and do the work. Otherwise nothing will get done. Even taking 30 minutes in between appointments or errands to stop in my studio and do something is better than nothing. Progress doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does success. Small steps culminate in a long journey - I can’t wish things into action, or rely on social media to do all of the work. I have to make work, because without it, there’s nothing to share or post about!

THE PROCESSElizabeth SageJuly 25, 2018inspiration, processComment

The First Painting

In an earlier post I talked about my first landscape painting and a particularly challenging assignment that my professor would task us with at the beginning of each semester, which led me to discover a new way to paint. Instead of using areas of thick paint, like I'd done with some landscape & outdoor scenes, I layered lots of thin layers on top of each other, giving the painting a glowy effect. I decided to try out this new application to a landscape painting, thus beginning my "new era," so to speak, of landscapes.

Scrolling all the way back through my photos made me laugh a little, because I found the original picture of this painting in the first hundreds of my 10,000 photos of my camera roll. What seems like a lifetime ago was actually less than three years ago. Three years. It's so easy for me to feel like I have been doing this forever, and that I haven't done enough, or haven't grown big enough or had enough success, but seeing the time stamp on that photo of the first landscape gave me some perspective. It showed me that I have grown, and I have been successful, and I've only been seriously painting barely three years, and part of that time I was still in school.

Part of my painting process is starting with really bright colors in the first layers, and then painting over them with softer, lighter layers. Because oil paint is more transparent than other paints, the vibrancy of the first layers shine through, ever so subtly, in the finished painting.

THE HEARTElizabeth SageJuly 23, 2018Comment

Artists I'm Loving

Today I'm featuring some of the art & artists that inspire me. These guys are too good not to share!

Karen Blair :: I found Karen's work when we both had pieces at Bee Street Studio, and I was immediately grabbed by her lively brushstrokes and felt the energy coming from each piece. I loooove her use of soft colors, and admire how her pieces are abstract-ish, but still landscape-ish.

THE PROCESSElizabeth SageJuly 18, 2018inspiration, artists I'm lovingComment

For The Love of Color

There were many lessons I learned from a certain challenging assignment while I was in school. I learned to loosen up, to not put so much pressure on my work, and to experiment with color. My love of studying color stems from this project. What you might not know about my work is that I often paint the first layer of my paintings with garishly bright colors. I’m talking hot pinks, neon oranges, the most awful yellows, and cartoon blues. But then I layer softer colors on top of that. And then I keep layering. The result is a painting that appears soft, but has an inner glow from those first layers. It is through this process that I am able to feel what I am painting, and how people who see my work derive their emotional responses.

THE PROCESSElizabeth SageJuly 16, 2018process, paintingComment

NEW COLLECTION: The Color of My Sky

his collection of paintings is the deep, long exhale after a period of major life change and the busiest, most jam-packed schedule of my life. With a brain that finally has the space to create again, I found rest in returning to my original inspiration: land, sky, and the wide open spaces in between. I have fallen into rest in these places; they rejuvenate me like no other place can.

These paintings signify a return to an old place in a new personal context. While many things have changed since last finishing a painting, this place has stayed the same. Now I’m seeing it with fresh eyes, and looking even closer into the relationship between the land and the sky. I want to capture the dual feelings of constancy and change, of fleeting moments in a permanent place. The colors of my sky might be changing, but its colors are always beautiful.

THE STUDIOElizabeth SageJuly 12, 2018painting, news, collectionComment

Finding New Words

It’s been a while since I wrote about my work, about my life, about my thoughts. It’s been a while, probably too long. When I had to talk about my work and write about my work in school, these words came easier, and it seemed like I had more to say. It’s funny how that works; the more you talk, the more you have to say.

Maybe I'm just figuring it out? Maybe the past couple of years out of school have been a transitional time, a time where I get to keep making, not really knowing what direction it’s headed, but knowing that I can’t stop or else I won’t be able to start again. It’s the necessity of creating, rather than the need for the finished product. I can’t lose that side of my work! I have been so focused on selling and the post-production aspect of my practice, that it is easy to lose sight of the making itself.

One of my former professor would give us the same challenge with each new semester: make something you have never done before and never seen before. Every time she introduced the assignment, it was usually met with protest and anger. How is that even possible? How are we supposed to do that? But I’m a landscape/portrait/abstract painter! I can’t do something else but that, right?

THE HEARTElizabeth SageJuly 11, 2018process, blog Comment

The Farm

Capital T, capital F - The Farm. Located in the heart of South Texas, an hour and a half southwest of Houston, it’s set on roughly 80 acres of the the gentlest rolling land. Nearly-historic oak trees and stately groves of pecan trees grow their roots in its ground. And on a cloudless night, the sky is the clearest window to the stars that you can’t find within big city limits. It started as a place where my family could keep their hands busy and scratch the itch to get out of the city. What I didn’t expect was that it would change my life and my artwork in the best way.

The Farm came into my life freshman year of TCU. I was a budding art student pushing all kinds of boundaries with my work - cake slices revealing new worlds within! Waterfalls gushing from conch shells! Some pretty earth-shattering stuff, right? Ha. Then I went to Italy for a semester, which I wouldn’t trade for anything, but came back a little tired of cherubs and Renaissance Italian dignitaries, so I started painting abstract paintings.My dad began beekeeping at The Farm, so the honeycomb shape became the basis of this period of abstracts. They kept me busy for a semester, but I knew they wouldn’t be “my thing.” Still, slowly, The Farm was creeping into my work.

THE HEARTElizabeth SageJuly 9, 2018Comment