Elaine d'Esterre

Feminist Visual Artist – Paintings, Mixed Media and Etchings

Artwork and underpainting progress

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The under paintings gradually take shape in unexpected directions.

Some minor alterations were required to lighten tones and enhance contrasts. Feeling ambivalent about the sombre colours. I want more vibrant intense colour. And on reflection I prefer some of the underpainting to the ‘finished’ image. Back to the drawing board. I wanted to express some of the reflections of being immersed in the gorges in the Pilbara. Untitled 3 looks more like the sands of Lake Mungo and the feeling often experienced in the desert where wind and sand appear to erase evidence of existence. (In fact fossilised footprints 40,000 years + old were found imprinted into what was originally a bed of clay).

Author: elainedesterre

I have been producing oil paintings, mixed media, prints (etching), digital prints and drawings for many years travelling to the Australian outback and overseas for inspiration and further education. My formal education consists of a PhD in painting and a BA in printmaking and my artwork is represented in public and private collections. My purpose and ongoing challenge is to create a gender-balanced and environment-focused iconography within the Western canon of European oil painting. These themes find expression within imagery about time, memory and identity as well as in geomorphology of evolutionary and environmental significance.

2 thoughts on “Artwork and underpainting progress”

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  1. drawandshoot
    April 7, 2014 at 1:56 am

    I enjoy seeing the process. What a great idea to document the transitions.

    • elainedesterre
      April 7, 2014 at 10:09 pm

      Thank you Karen. It seems to help me to arrive at a more focussed statement. I admire how you sensitively capture stages of movement in one image that give it a quality that draws in my eye esp. the first two images of the trees.