Artwork for Sale - Moving Abroad, Everything Must Go

I am planning on moving to England to begin my career in teaching art there. As a result I have to part ways with some pieces that I`ve been pretty attached to for the last few years. Below are the pieces that I would much rather see find a new home than sit in storage for years and years. Note that I will take care of matting all prints and drawings, included in the price listed.

Greek Goddess, Greek God, Foot Study, charcoal on paper

11" x 14" to  22" x 24" $30-50.00 ea.

Running Horse, charcoal on paper,
11" x 14" SOLD

"Toilet Paper Art" raised relief paper casts with acrylic and watercolour

about 8" x 11" $10.00 ea.

"Power of the Bull" collage in shadow box 

about 8" x 14" $15.00

Birth of Venus acrylic on stretched canvas 

18" x 22" SOLD

New Disaster, acrylic on stretched canvas 

18" x 22" $150.00

Good Morning! acrylic on panel

20"x36" SOLD

In the Fire, acrylic on stretched canvas

8" x 10" SOLD

Iris, watercolour on stretched canvas

18"x22" $80

We Are One, acrylic on stretched canvas

11" x 14" SOLD

Lennoxville Train Bridge, acrylic and mixed media on panel

18"x22" SOLD

Chemin des Cotes, copper plate etching

about 4  5"x7" prints available $10.00 ea.

 Moose Antlers, prints

6"x14" $10.00 ea.

 PIECES SOON TO BE FINISHED

Flamingo, acrylic on stretched canvas

10" x 32" SOLD

Untitled, acrylic on panel (framed-- not pictured),
12" x 24" SOLD

Wild Horses, acrylic on stretched canvas
 24" x 30" $150.00

Hashtag Selfie, acrylic on panel
14" x 17" $45.00

"Selling" Art to Fundraise for the Mental Illness Foundation

On Sunday, April 27th I will be running my first ever 5k race, with the goal of raising money for the Mental Illness Foundation. I am currently seeking sponsors to help in my fundraising efforts. I have decided to give away original art pieces and prints in exchange for donations to my cause. Whether you live near or far, I will get you the piece below of your choice. I just ask for donations of a minimum $5-20 depending on the size of the piece. All donations of $20+ are eligible for tax receipts. Everybody wins!

Let's skip to the good stuff, the pieces I am willing to part ways with. If there is anything else of mine that you would be interested in and its not on this page (some pieces from my sketchbooks have not been photographed/scanned or I simply forgot to add them) please let me know. If you would like more information on how you can help, and on the cause you will be supporting, simply scroll to the end of this post.

 Artist Trading Cards,  mixed media, 2"x3"

 

 Baby flamingos and horses,pencil and/or charcoal drawings, about 8"x10"

Running Horse, charcoal, about 11"x13"

 ...Or 8"x10" prints (or smaller, if you have a specific frame you wish to fill) of any of the artwork you will find on this site. Some examples are:

  

How To Help:

My goal is to raise $500. There are two ways to donate- 1) give me cash personally, or 2) online payment. The ScotiaBank Charity Challenge makes it easy for us to fundraise by providing a secure website that accepts credit card payments. If you would like to simply donate, visit the link below :

http://my.e2rm.com/PersonalPage.aspx?registrationID=2213919&langPref=en-CA
(you may have to copy+paste this link into your browser's address bar)

If you are interested in donating in exchange for a piece of my artwork, I am going to make the process very simple:

1. Contact me and tell me which piece you would like, the size if its a print, and how much you would like to donate. I will let you know if it is still available.. and obviously I am going to go with the highest bidder ;)
2. I will direct you  to the link above, unless you can get it from me personally, and donate the amount you wish to donate.
3. Send me your shipping address. I will get the piece to you as soon as I receive verification of the transaction, and will take care of all other costs personally... I only ask that if I am to ship something, please make a donation that is worthwhile for me to cover shipping costs, it would be much appreciated.

The Mental Illness Foundation:

5-10% of teenagers will suffer from clinical depression at one point in their lives

I work for their program Partners for Life, which goes into high schools all over Quebec and Ontario to raise awareness on depression and suicide prevention. We inform teens on what depression is, the causes, symptoms, and how they can get help for themselves or someone they are worried about. Myself and my colleagues are trained to do intervention when necessary, and it is in those one-on-one conversations that I have with these teens that I know we are doing good work.

The Mental Illness Foundation is a non-for-profit organization that relies completely on the generous support from our sponsors. We offer our services free to schools, but we are not government funded!

Bebe Bryan - Charcoal Drawing

For Christmas 2013 I decided to do a charcoal drawing of my sister's baby Bryan when he was a newborn. The photo had been on my radar for months, and finally I had the time to do it. This is the kind of work that I would like to be doing more of in the future. I am putting more time into portraiture, including animals as well as people. Would you like for me to do something like this for you? I am definitely open to commissions. This is an 8"x10" and I would probably do something similar for under $50CAD.

Bebe Bryan, charcoal on paper, 8"x10", 2013

The scan quality wasn't the best, unfortunately, but I did what I could in Photoshop to make it look as much like the original as I could. Didn't do justice to the shading but at least I have some evidence of this adorable charcoal drawing. 

More Horse Drawings

Since I've been sick I haven't been making much art. I kind of hate myself for it, but at the same time I can't blame myself if I just don't feel it. It's like Lyme disease attacked the part of my brain that is responsible for my creativity and my passion. I truly don't want to do anything anymore. 

But I realized I haven't posted in a while, and there were a few drawings I didn't share, so I figured I would add this entry.

"Running Horse" is a graphite drawing I started when I was sick and was just starting to feel better. It was intended as an anatomical value study. It took me a while before I revisited it and finished the mane, but eventually it was done. 

This second one is just a little sketch from a picture. I don't remember when I drew this, and don't recall having posted it before so I figured I would.  

And then we have Joy. I still haven't finished Joy. It's done in conte, and I don't have any light caramel colour conte to do the bridle and halters.. so this drawing that is several years in the making remains unfinished still. I'm a little apathetic to the situation. I'll finish it eventually.

All of these images are taken from my Instagram account because of a combination of being busy and lazy, I haven't gotten around to scanning and uploading them properly. Please, do follow me on Instagram! @salainart

The Artist's First Confrontation With the Self

How intimidating it is to look yourself in the eye and...Draw your own face...#artist
— Sandra Alain (@salain_art) May 23, 2013

Yesterday the mood struck to sit on the floor of my studio (my new habit) and draw. Lacking inspiration I dug up a mirror and set it before one of the most difficult things I have ever tried to draw thus far: my face.

I have dipped my feet into the world of mirrors in past months, only drawing weird sometimes awkward and unflattering angles of my body in an attempt to study value, proportion, and muscle tone. But to draw the face of a human being is so meticulous. The standard formula doesn't apply. Following the natural movement of my pencil is not always trustworthy. Our faces are not perfect, symmetrical reflections of the ideal human image. I try to draw everything with truth to the subject, regardless of how flattering the end result may be. Not to say I don't think I'm pretty (just sayin').

I chose charcoal because I've been on a kick with it lately. I enjoy creating loose, fluid renderings, because I enjoy losing myself in the movement of drawing. I don't care about minute details, as long as I capture what it is that I intend to portray. With that said, the results of my first experimentations with self portraits from direct observation are.. expected, from a technical standpoint.

Will I choose charcoal again? Maybe, if I would like to go for a similar effect. But I would like to know what I can accomplish if I should really sit down with an unlimited amount of time and a tray of drawing pencils and erasers. What am I capable of with a mirror and a disciplined hand? I'd like to find out in the future.

At first it is strange to look at your face so closely. It is a face you see every day. A face that I, as a woman, often use as a canvas itself for makeup and fashion. You have to practice detachment from all that you know about what your face looks like, or what you think it should look like. You have to step down from the intimidation that comes along with staring at yourself so critically and objectively. Remember you are just drawing what you see: line, form, value.

Two drawings later and no natural light left, I shifted my intentions to drawing a more familiar subject. Yes, my cat has been the object of many art pieces since I was 9 years old. He is often photogenic, has interesting markings for replication, and was definitely a perfect model for learning gesture drawing. When I decided to draw him he was lying on my couch simply staring at me. Several times he turned his head to try to lay it down, and several times I called his name and made him snap back to attention-- miraculously and thankfully, always returning to the same position. After finishing about a quarter of his face I realized I had better not push my luck and decided to draw only half of his face. I like it that way, I think it is interesting.

I told him that this picture would make him famous. He put on an irritated "grumpy cat" face for me while I was drawing him, but then put on his best cute face for the camera. Naturally.

I hope you enjoyed my work from yesterday.

The Horses

You know that once a painting has found its name that it has begun its journey to greatness.

Allure, acrylic on canvas (detail)

After doing some work on Beauty I put this piece on my easel. I whited out major problems. Then I picked up a brush loaded with turquoise paint, took a deep breath, and went to town.

That's when it found its name. "Allure." I wanted the mysterious illusion of what might be a horse dancing within waves of colour to have allure. Once that thought ran through my mind, I knew that was it.

And just like that, now the painting had meaning. It began to take on its sense of allure. The turquoise caused a drastic well needed change in direction. I love it. The image above is a detail of the painting, taken from my Instagram, the white balance is off. Will obviously put up a better image once progress continues.

Working on this painting inspired me to continue on the horse fix. I was working out the positioning of the head and neck in my sketchbook, and after I finished my work on the painting for the day I felt the urge to go back to a drawing I had started in 2011 of our horse, Joy. I did the majority of the drawing until I became frustrated drawing the meticulous details of the halter, bridle, etc. that she had on so I left it. So on this day I decided to finish the line drawing. Here she is.

Joy, graphite and conte on paper

I decided to leave the colour for another day. As much as I love the aspect of colour in my paintings, I'm really not a fan of using it at all in my drawings. I am not sure if i will fill this in using conte-- Joy is a bay, meaning she has brown fur and black mane-- or what..

The horses didn't stop there, either. I wasn't finished yet. I hopped onto Deviantart for inspiration, and did some quick maybe 20-30 minute drawings from photographs that I found were dynamic.

White Beauty drawing graphite on paper

I found that my fascination with drawing the musculature of humans transferred well over into horses, who are such finely built animals. I focused on movement and proportion, as well as highlighting parts some don't often draw in simple line drawings. I am extremely happy with how fluid and lifelike the drawings came out, truly like a moment frozen in time.

Golden Horse drawing graphite on paper

 *Original photographs of the horses that I based the drawings off of taken by http://mari-mi.deviantart.com/

Beauty is Pain

Beauty

This painting has been the bane of my existance and the love of my life for about 9 months now. It is sickening to think of how long is has taken me to get to this point-- this point of knowing it is near finished but there is still a lot of work to do. 

The hours put into this painting, messing it up, fixing it, messing it up, fixing it.. it is frustrating to think about. You would think that with all of the skill that I possess, that I would have been more efficient. That my brush would have been more sure. Such is never the case. Because my work, whether it is commissioned or not, reflects what is also going on within me and within my world. If my painting is messy, it is likely that my life is just as well. So that's where I was in the initial stages of creating this. Just unsure and not confident about where I was going with it. 

I recall walking by it a few times, looking at it, and uttering a curse. Artists are damned by being so passionate. You know that you've hit an all-time low when you can knowingly admit that you have become defeated by a painting, by an unanimate object of your own creation.

It is nice to be able to see this in the same context that you all are looking at it now. This image was taken with a cell phone camera much better than the one I'd been working with before, and uploaded via my Instagram. I can really analyze it outside of the studio which helps me look at it from a wider perspective. 

With that said, I can't believe I'm still not happy with the majority of it. Instead of seeing just a few tweaks to make her hair transition nicely into the background, I am thinking about re-doing all of her skin to match the face, because I like those tones much better. But I know that once I do that, I will also have to add a bit more color to the blanket. All of a sudden I have much work ahead of me.

Time to get started.

I'm Still Alive

Contrary to what my online presence would lead you to believe. The last few months have been quite a ride. I got a promotion, became an aunt, and have been spending minimal time at home (and  even less time in the studio). The pressure of feeling the need to create masterpieces was weighing heavily on me so I decided to take a break.

I felt like Icarus flying too close to the sun, pushing myself harder and higher without realizing it, until all of a sudden I just fell apart at the seams. The decision that I wasn't ready to go for my MFA shook my esteem and my determination. If I wasn't going to pursue la vie boheme for the time being, then what else was there for me? The realisation that there is little work in my field in this city (with the exception of graphic design jobs, which I would never want to do full time) was also disheartening.When my boss offered me a promotion I told him I didn't even know if I wanted to live in Montreal anymore.

I needed to reboot. I put down the paintbrushes, drew the curtain around my studio, and focused on me. I took the new job, and used the gym as an outlet for my stress and anxiety. I picked up pencils and charcoal from time to time, worked on graphic design projects, and I knew that when I was ready I would be able to paint again, this time with no pressure. I am at that point now, where I can revisit my unfinished pieces with a fresh, clear mind.

So with that said, stay tuned.

xoxo

Baby Flamingo Drawings

Revisiting the flamingo fixation, but in a new way. I was inspired by the cute and awkward baby flamingos while watching Disney Nature's The Crimson Wing (I was equally inspired to write a post about it on my other blog, Lusty Flamingo). Feeling the need to do some realistic drawing therapy,I created these two little guys with willow charcoal.

Baby Flamingo No. 1 willow charcoal and white conte

Drawn from a screenshot from The Crimson Wing (around 29:00)

Baby Flamingo No. 2 willow charcoal

Drawn from a photo by fellow DeviantArt member *sikaris.