ROULIER'S RUSTY RELIQUES

THE TATTERED CIRCUS

Ladies and gentlemen step right up and see Claudia Roulier's "the tattered circus" with brand new work. Be amused at the amazing "dancing hyenas", or linger a while with a glass of wine while watching the bicycle riding bear (yes it's true) and his hummingbird friends, if that's not your cup of wine or tea then how about meeting the life sized robo pup, Sparky, be warned, approach him cautiously. Or indulge your senses while relaxing with Madonna in Eden. Not exciting enough for you? Then experience the miniature marvels of nature, tiny babies with bird like heads, breath taking! Something for everyone!! Hope to see you there.
Core Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Dr, Denver, Colorado
March 25-April 11
Main Event March 26 6-9
Extravaganza First Friday April 2

IS IT DONE YET???

It's always better to stop a little early rather than stop too late. You can always change easily and incrementally rather than painting out whole portions of you latest and greatest work. This is not to say that this won't happen because it will, but you want to avoid it being every time! Here is my latest and not so greatest, it's still not quite working for me. After I did this and the contrast seemed right now the image looks like it is on fire, although I find that kinda cool it really doesn't work. It's probably a stretch to say well fire is a part of the circus with various animals jumping through hoops that are lit on fire. It's obvious that there is not a hoop and no hyena jumping through it here.......sigh. Back to the drawing board. No it's not quite done yet.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN A PIECE OF ART IS FINISHED??

As artists we tend to see others work with more clarity and objectivity than we see our own work and that makes perfect sense. So we need to develop guideposts to help us see our work with laser like focus.

One of the first things I do is to photograph my picture part way through the process then again at the end and use the settings in my photo program to change it to black and white. This does a couple of things for me, it shows me the areas that need more contrast and it points to the weaker areas of my composition. Because I already know that I tend to get caught up in the small unimportant details and become enamored with the color and line so I need to remove those distractions.

 On this particular piece I am at a place where I want to quit and my thinking is I'm very close to being done, so now comes putting down the pencils and paint and just get away from it so I can look with fresh eyes a little later. When using the black and white tool I think you can see a distinct difference in how you "see" the the picture. I can already see one thing I need to do, behind the hyena on his back there is not nearly enough contrast therefore rendering that part of the picture....well....boring! Some more on this subject tomorrow.

 

 

"WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS??"

I sometimes get asked ...."where do you get your ideas?". To be honest I can't say definitively, however I usually work in series and one idea seems to bounce off a previous work. I usually start with an image, these are selected for a certain quality it has, whether it is posture or expression. Usually these images are animals that display a certain human quality. Circuses and carnivals have an appeal to me especially the sideshow midway aspects. Behind all that lie the things I like to look at, the tarnished, dirty and darker side. The things you don't notice at first glance.

MY STUDIO

My studio is a disaster currently, seems to happen when I'm getting ready for a show! As you can see there is much sitting around....pieces of art.....things and stuff......supplies....little things I have latched on to.....just a big mess. Good thing for me that I can work in this kind of environment other wise I would be SOL....!

DANCING HYENAS WITH SOMETHING ON THEIR MINDS

These fellows have a little something else on their minds.......!!!

 

DANCING HYENAS WITH SOMETHING ON THEIR MINDS

These fellows have a little something else on their minds.......!!!

MORE ABOUT THE AMAZING HYENAS AND FUN AT CORE GALLERY

A quick snapshot at Core gallery extravaganza "The Love Show", a fun time and something with a twist....a bit of performance art as a part of a what was already a great show.                                                                                                                Also getting the kinks out of the hyenas, as it were, I decided what the background will be so more on that when it's further along. Cleaned up the lettering and put some more detail and color in the hyenas.

 

THE AMAZING DANCING HYENAS

Next project, just have some color laid in and I'm tinkering with which direction to go, no detail yet and the color is jumbled still but it will all pull together, eventually. Now is the time to make the big changes.

RUN RABBIT RUN

Pretty much finished painting and adding some more "artsy stuff", to this guy.