MEET THE MODEL: Doug

Black dog (Doug) with white muzzle, tongue hanging low, one ear up one down, peering out of a soybean field.

The name of our first dog was inspired by a Gary Larson “far side” cartoon featuring a man peeking around a tree in a fenced yard, and a sales man at the gate looking at a sign that reads “Beware of Doug”* (My husband’s idea.) * I am not posting the cartoon here in respect … Read more

Watch a commission develop!

A commissioned portrait, in black and white, of a woman, her horse and dog. The E3, (family portrait series,) 2018, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 12”, Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis

THE E3 VIDEO In this 2 minute video you will find some of the steps I take to complete a commission. There is a lot of work that goes into it even before brush can touch canvas. Omitted, are the communications with the client, intermediate steps, and the time in between actions. Time for contemplation, … Read more

A SHORT SHOW & TELL on VARIATIONS part 1: Mark Making & Seeing

Felt tip pen drawing of a recumbent fluffy white dog. Grey with white and black accents. Artist Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis.

Variations on Butterscotch (Drawings) When I first got my new paint pens I made three quick drawings from the same reference photo. (Thanks, Kathy Hsiao, for the photo of Butterscotch.) I really got a thrill. The pens reminded how much I love to draw. Making these variations, I was merely getting a feel for the pens … Read more

THE CHICKEN HOUSE STUDIO part 1: the beginnings

Chicken house masonry building interior as found without doors or windows and strewn with debris and trash.

Humid buggy air loitered in the holes where windows and doors once were. The corrugated tin roof was leaky, rusted, and layered over spongy asphalt shingles. On the cobwebbed inside, feathers stuck to chicken wire and translucent snake skins hung from the rafters. The floor was dirt. Its most recent use a convenient and hidden repository of oversized, unwanted, hard to dispose of junk. But it was a sturdy masonry building with a spacious interior.

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