ALEXIS LEVINE
Greensboro artist Alexis Lavine recently shared her work with curator Edie Carpenter and others during Open NC Art Review, a professional development program at GreenHill. Lavine is one of the state’s leading watercolorists.
One of Lavine’s most recent works encapsulates the simple yet vital act of washing one’s hands:
Alexis Lavine, Twenty Seconds, 2020, watercolor on cold-pressed paper, 15 x 15 inches
“I was standing at my sink one day, humming away, when I got kind of mesmerized watching my hands, their tandem movement, the slip of the bubbles, the sound of the running water, the scent of the soap. It was a transfixing and transformative moment. And it made me realize that this image - this totally ordinary moment of hand washing - was completely iconic for this weird and scary time we are experiencing.
So I decided that I wanted to paint my hands. Yes, those are my hands in the painting. I wanted to make them look graceful, and even prayerful. I chose to put the window behind them, to remind us of the bigger world beyond this intimate moment and perhaps suggest a bit of hopefulness out there. All that green outside the window - the world is indeed alive!”
Lavine’s watercolors are known for being able to communicate the beauty and the wonder in an ordinary moment.
When asked about her approach to watercolor Lavine emphasizes the role of design:
“Without superior design, a well-crafted and technically well painted watercolor will still fall flat. Design, the art of arranging all the pieces of a painting on the surface of the paper, is paramount. Making a painting that is eye-catching, engages the viewer, expresses a mood or an emotion, tells a story…that requires some thoughtful, strategic designing.”
The artist’s study of design has led to a new body of abstract works:
“Most of my paintings, throughout my career have been realistic, based on specific, identifiable imagery. However, I also like to paint abstractions, because they are pure design. With abstractions, I do not have to worry about specific imagery, story telling, perspective, anatomy, accurate drawing, and many other considerations. With abstractions, I dive right in, laying in colors, and strokes, relying on intuition, accidental passages, experimentation - - and then I rein it all in and pull it all together with DESIGN. I think that painting abstractly makes me a better realistic painter! And maybe it works the other way too.”
Alexis Lavine, The Explainer, 2020, watercolor on gesso-coated watercolor paper, 15 x 11 inches
Lavine’s abstractions have garnered immediate success and The Explainer will be presented at Abstract National Exhibition 2020 at the Mark Arts Center in Wichita, Kansas.
Lavine walked us through her painting process for this abstract watercolor:
“I started this painting by selecting a limited palette of just four colors, and then I painted them across the entire paper, using brushes, paint-rollers, spritzers, and even my fingers pushing the paint around the surface. When that dried, I searched out shapes which had revealed themselves, and I worked around and into those shapes, drawing lines with water-soluble crayons. The next stage I call my stained-glass stage, because I start to paint inside, and sometime outside, of the shapes which I have defined with my lines, altering colors by applying new colors on top, darkening shapes by adding darker paint, always relying on my intuition and my design sense. Once I have created my stained-glass shapes, I then start to lift color off, to lighten some shapes back towards the white paper beneath them.
The specific surface I used for this painting, gesso-coated paper, allows me to lift paint off more easily than standard, untreated watercolor paper. Next I push way down deep into the dark value range, to make sure I have darks, middle ranges and light shapes areas in the painting. Then I do more drawing, more shape-finding, crossing and adjusting edges, adding texture. “
When asked how she “finished” this work Lavine responded:
“The final thing I did on this painting was to add the 'pops' of red-orange. Until the very last stage, the painting was entirely in the gold to green to blue range. Not bad. But those pops of red-orange just made the painting sing! Brought it to life!“
Try your hand at watercolor painting! Lavine shares the following demonstration from a series of free courses she has been offering during social distancing.
We watercolorists need to plan ahead a bit more than painters in other media, and we need to truly understand how to manipulate our brushes, select our pigments, and use the WATER to our advantage. I always like to say that mastering watercolor requires a true understanding of how much water you need … in your paint, on your palette, in your brushes, and on the surface of your paper. Once you figure that out, you are on your way!
Here's my source photo. I like many of the shapes in the various pieces of laundry. But the laundry in the photo needs some sunlight shining on it and a breeze - two requirements for good air drying! Let's see what can be done about that...
I start with a small and simple value sketch, using a #2 graphite pencil. Notice that I am adding some light on the laundry shapes and surrounding them with mid value and darker shapes for contrast. You can also see that I am giving some of the shapes some angularity and curves, to suggest a puff of wind. No limply hanging laundry in my painting!
Here's my first stage. I have painted a wet-in-wet underpainting over my line drawing on my 140 pound cold pressed watercolor paper. Before I started to paint, I applied some masking fluid on a few small, skinny details, such as the clothesline and clothespins. Please notice that I have worked my underpainting from cool at the left to warm at the right. I am hoping to follow this throughout the creation of this painting, to enhance my viewer's visual movement through it.
Now I am starting to define and describe the clothes and linens, contrasting each shape from its neighbors via value contrasts. Do you see that warm-to-cool gradation developing even more? I have also started to glaze on some grayer/darker color in the background/negative space. I have also started to suggest a bit of dappled cast shadow on the ground, using some dry-brush strokes.
The negative space, is mostly done now. It needed to be mid-dark value throughout, so I darkened the entire background area. I also did a fair amount of glazing on the laundry shapes, to suggest folds, patterns, and shadows on them. I kept fairly close to my original cool-to-warm concept, but I also moved the colors back and forth through the shapes. So you will see cools within warm areas and vice-versa. This does help to unify the colors somewhat. Please notice where I scrubbed through the lower edge of the large pink sheet right into the light shape of the grass. I felt that this was extremely important - - to let my viewer move visually out of the large laundry shape and into the negative space. Without that my viewer might feel "visually trapped" within the confines of the light laundry shape.
This final photo shows the painting with the frisket removed. Frisket had originally been painted onto the clotheslines and clothespins. Those hard frisket edges just needed a bit of "tickling" with some plain water, to soften them a bit. I also softened the edges of the laundry in a few more places. I think this gives it a sense of movement and fabric-like softness, and once again, helps to ease the transition between positive and negative areas.
Copyright © 2020 Alexis Lavine Artist, All rights reserved.
Alexis Lavine has devoted the last two decades to watercolor painting and teaching. Her award winning paintings have been included in numerous juried and gallery exhibitions, and they hang in private and corporate collections throughout the country, as well as overseas. Lavine has been active raising money for Greensboro Urban Ministry through an online auction accessed through her website.