An Artist's Journal:Paintings by Felicia Marshall

11"x 14" acrylic on hardboard I got half way through this painting about two years ago.   I always knew that I would come back to finish it up, I just never knew when.   Well, I finally dusted it off and finished it.   The hardest thing about it was coming up with a title. SOLD

11x14 Acrylic This is one of my relatives we refer to as Cudd’n Lisha.   She stands tall in the center of the painting.   She was a giant of a woman that married a man barely five feet tall.   I guess it worked.   They were both the most well-traveled and social of all my relatives.   I have no idea why they were all dressed up on this occasion, but I can only imagine it was for some fancy event relating to one of their many clubs and organizations that they were members. Sold

9”x 14” acrylic on hardboard I've written before about my aunt’s church, mostly about how small it is.  This is her and some of her members singing during one of their church concerts.   Southern Baptists have a tradition of color coordinating.   This is women in white.   All of the women in the church wear the same color on a particular day.   This happens to be the day they chose to all wear white.   Southern Baptists, like the Brits also have a long tradition of wearing hats.   My aunt loves her hats.  She told me once with a smile, that she had one entire room in her house just for all of her hats. SOLD

8"x 10" acrylic on hardboard When I paint a gallery scene, I break it into parts.  I begin with the recognizable painting, which has to connect to the viewer.  The viewer (figure) is painted second.  The background wall, and the floor are then painted.  I’m always nervous about how to make a wall of color interesting, but not overpowering at the same time.  Last I paint any reflections or shadows on the floor.  These are the details that make the viewer look as if they are in the gallery.  When it works it works.  When it doesn’t, I keep painting.  This is a study in contrasts.  I thought these three young people cleverly connect with one another.  For me, museum paintings are mostly about the artwork viewing the person.  Instead of the person viewing the artwork. SOLD

12 x 16 acrylic on hardboard My aunt, seen here on the right, is what I call a wonder woman.  She raised seven children while working full time, and upon retiring opened and runs her own bakery. She created my wedding cake, which was gorgeous. Every year my aunt, organizes a musical for her church.  This musical brings people in from all around this big state of Texas.  This year the women all wore gray. It had been so long since I had been a part of their annual musical.  I was in high school the last time I participated.  I asked my parents whom are loyal participants,  how many people belong to my aunt's church now.  My parents thought for a few minutes before offering..."Not many."  My mother began counting each couple and the pastor and his wife finishing at the number eight.  "Are you sure I asked?" I was reminded that they live in a rural community. SOLD

8 x 10 acrylic on hardboard I haven't painted a museum scene in awhile.  These two ladies seem to be more interested in their conversation than the figure in the painting.  It reminds me of all of the time I spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a college student.  It was a common place to have an Art History class meet.  After three and a half years, the grandness of the architecture and the experience had worn off.  I had became more interested in finding the paintings the professor wanted me to compare and write about, so I could get out of there before the kids let out of school.   They had a way of swamping the subway with their outrageous behavior.  I love art.  I love history, but I hated art history.  I was too immature and I'm probably dyslexic.  I found the book which weighed about five lbs. completely intimidating.  I know, I'm really bad, but honestly I just wanted to paint and look at paintings withou...

8 x 10 acrylic on hardboard The last time I visited my mother, she surprised me with a photo saying, "I found a picture you would probably love to paint."  To my amazement she reappeared from a back bedroom and presented me with this image.  Wow!  My mother found the picture in a file with some other documents belonging to my grandfather. What a treat it was to paint theses fashionable women. SOLD

8"x 10" acrylic on hardboard I enjoy working with portraits.  No big surprise I know.      I thought I was being adventurous with a blue background.  Blue isn't a color I would have naturally chosen for the back, I'm more of an earth tone or neutral kind of girl.  This painting taught me a lot.  I generally think in layers when I am painting.  In order to get the eyes to look correct, I had to layered values and colors like I've never done before.  The eyes have about six layers of paint and gloss medium on them.

8"x 10" acrylic on hardboard Coming up with titles is either easy or hard. There is no in between. This one came to me at the beginning of the painting process. With "Beauty Queens" I'm celebrating the diversity of my family and the concept of beauty.  I began this painting with each face.  I thought capturing each woman's face would be the hardest part of the painting, so  wanted to get that out of the way first.  In the back of my mind I knew if I couldn't pull off the faces I could just scrap the entire thing.  Then I wouldn't have committed too much energy and time on this one.  I also knew that it takes a lot for me to scrap a painting. I hate the feeling of defeat. Realistically, if I didn't get the faces modeled just right, then I would be obsessed until I did!  That's no fun.  Luckily I was able to paint all four portraits in about three hours. I impressed even myself. SOLD

8"x10" acrylic on hardboard   This is a study of contrasts.  I enjoyed playing with the idea of opposites attracting.  Here you have the reserved older lady in her formal blue dress seated next to the spunky younger woman in her short skirt.  Opposites do attract.  This was another image almost lost forever from our family records.  Had it not been for my father's final walk through of his childhood home, I would not have had this great image as a reference  for this painting. SOLD

8" x 10" acrylic on hardboard I usually get really intimidated when I have to paint more than one person in a single scene. I am becoming better at this though, it's something I can't keep dancing around so I am meeting this challenge head on. I had a relative that I always thought of as very classy and worldly. She and her husband did things I could only dream of as a little girl growing up in a trailer park.  Things like going on vacations, traveling to California to visit relatives, and going on cruises. They were also members of several popular clubs and organizations. One such club was the Ladies Garden Club.  They took turns hosting the garden club at their houses monthly. I think this is one of the images from the ladies garden club, or at least that's what was on the back of the photograph. I guess I would consider myself an anti club person, but I was quite happy to find out that I received the dishes that she used when hosting her garden club ...

5"x7" acrylic on hardboard I love it when I learn something new while collecting information for a painting. I have always loved this painting. I hadn't realized until now that the artist painted this model several times in almost the exact same position draped leisurely across the furniture in her pattered room. I was actually trying to look up the title using Google when I continually pulled up the painting that I was not looking for. Here, where I live we have a catalog for continued adult learning entitled "Leisure Learning." I thought the title was appropriate given the two women observing the other at their own leisure pace. SOLD

8"x10" acrylic on hardboard Every year I used to visit this festival. I'd walk around randomly photographing at different levels and directions as I'd walk in an out of people. I never knew what I had until I developed my film. This is one of those shots. I was attracted to the two women's expressions and gestures as they talked while waiting for their next customer. SOLD

6x6 Acrylic on Masonite This image was captured during a recent visit to the International Festival. I had hoped to find people dressed in their native attire, and I had great hopes of finding someone dressed in a sari, they are so beautiful and ornate. Three hours, two funnel cakes, two potty breaks, and eight outrageously over priced drinks later we turned down a city block and heard the sounds of Indian music, the smells of incense burning , and in the center of it all were a group of men dressed in white drumming. Even further down the street were a smaller group of women creating their own rhythmic sounds. I took a panoramic photograph of the entire block ,not focusing on any particular thing and not necessarily getting my ideal image of a woman in a sari. But to my surprise I captured a glimpse of not just a culture, but one in transition. I found that what I did capture was so much more revealing and insightful than my oiginal intention.