Studio blog of Julie Galante – painting ridiculous things in Scotland
It’s spring in Edinburgh. The sun has been out more than not, trees and flowers are in bloom, and the days are quite noticeably longer. Everyone, even me the winter-lover, seems to be happy about the direction things are heading. In the studio, I’m a bit all over the place. I like to be able … Read more
Feeling a bit more organized this week. On Monday my new Scottish landscapes went on display at Bistro Provence, a French restaurant in Leith (a neighborhood of Edinburgh). They look good on the walls, and people had lots of nice things to say at the opening, so I’m starting to believe that landscapes and I might … Read more
I have a lot of different things going on in the studio this week: some paintings of the view out my window, a self portrait that I need to finish quickly for an exhibition, various mixed media experiments, and a small pile of daily paintings I want to re-work. Every single surface is covered with … Read more
Happy new year, my three readers. It’s cold and drafty in my studio, but I’m pretty sure it’s building my character, or something. This month my art has mainly focused on Scottish landscapes. Landscapes are a new challenge for me. How to create paintings that are interesting? Communicating an aspect of the beauty of a place … Read more
Now that that’s over, I’m moving on to some larger canvases, and now suddenly I have too many options. Do I focus on cityscapes next, as I had planned? Pursue Highland landscapes a bit more, as they turned out to be my favorite new subject last month? Go back to the Edinburgh pub and restaurant … Read more
So here we are at the end of Art Every Day Month, and what a lovely month it has been. I started out painting cocktails and desserts, and ended with moody Scottish landscapes. Given that at the beginning of the month I had no plan whatsoever (beyond making & sharing art every day), it was … Read more
Stepping away from the smooth white skies of yesterday, I decided to play around with some thick impasto abstract skies today. Which do you prefer? The paint on these reminds me of frosting, like what you would put on Christmas cookies. Mmmmm frosting. Maybe I should go back and paint another cupcake or two. It … Read more
In my mind’s eye, when I think about the imaginary landscapes I want to paint, they almost always look like a variation of these paintings: white skies, low horizon, dark land, sometimes a strand of bright color in between. I’m very compelled by this basic structure. Is it interesting enough for an entire series of paintings? … Read more
Last week I bought some plaster of paris, mixed it with pva glue, and smeared it on some canvases. Today I picked up the canvas I had made the bumpiest, and decided to paint this Edinburgh street scene on it. This was a challenging task – the surface was so uneven, I had trouble creating … Read more
I love these tiny little 10x15cm canvases – I can easily paint several of them in a day. Right now I seem to be a little obsessed with Plockton, a Scottish Highland town we recently visited. (Yesterday I wrote about our trip to Plockton on my travel blog.) Going back through the dozens of photos … Read more