A Thanksgiving Feast In My Fine Art Studio

Autumn Landscape In Southern California - Day Before Thanksgiving 2012

After a hot, lengthy summer of this year, beautiful autumn has finally taken the lead, transforming the bountiful land of Southern California. The sprawling landscapes, beaming in gold, with leaves painted in the light of apricot and pink sunsets, decorate the rolling hills. Warm, gentle days transform into chilly, deliciously fresh evenings and nights. The heart is full of joy as the upcoming winter holiday season approaches near.

Decorative Pumpkins & Gourds In My Fine Art Studio

Decorative pumpkins and gourds, most varied in form and color, embellish my fine art studio, lifting up the spirits with their bright hues of lemon yellows, sunny oranges, extraordinary white-green stripes and bumps. The autumn celebration of harvest and gratitude, Thanksgiving Day, had officially launched the holiday season yesterday. On this special day it was such excitement to practice my culinary talents, filling the air with delicious aromas of the harvest. The time had come to roast a turkey and celebrate with all those who are near and dear. 

A holiday turkey, roasted in a mandarin-glaze to pomegranate colored beauty. 

Baked citrus and cranberry-pear stuffing surround the traditional dish of giving thanks.

All day yesterday great culinary work cooked up in the kitchen, as I prepared a Thanksgiving feast extravaganza. 

A sweet onion water lily shaped bloom floats in a special syrup, 

ornamented with curls of fine cheese.

After a long day of culinary triumphs, it was time to sit down in good company and give thanks for all that is good in our lives and hope for more great joy in the future.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

You Are Cordially Invited.....

This wonderful season I am thrilled to be shining the spotlight on one of my limited edition fine art reproductions, entitled “Christmas Eve Is Here At Last”. Delightful fine art postcards had been especially created, and together with cheerful invitations sent to fine art collectors and connoisseurs.

You are all welcome to view beautiful fragments of my painting at

http://www.elenabaranoff.com/christmasevelimitededition.html

Drawing - The Power of Line

View of the Los Angeles skyline from The Getty Center

Gustav Klimt - An Exhibition At The Getty Center

A few months ago, one of my favorite Los Angeles museums, The Getty Center, hosted a wonderful retrospective exhibition devoted to the drawings of Gustav Klimt, a 19th century Austrian artist and key figure of international Modernism.

For me, visiting and viewing such exhibitions is a very special event. Being a fine artist, I observe the artworks of my fellow artists through a different prism, studying, evaluating and understanding them in a special way.

In our creations, we as fine artists feel, understand and speak in a language of lines, strokes, and this special dialect is understood and spoken between us, in the entirety of all its depth and meaning. 

Looking at Klimt's drawings, before me appeared his feelings and thoughts, inserted and told through the expressive dynamic of his graphite lines. 

The breath of the artist is alive in his immortal art, and as fresh as in the very moment of creation.

View of The Getty Center Garden

The exhibition, Gustav Klimt: The Magic Of Line, was of great interest to me, especially since drawing plays a pivotal role in my creative process.

In the summer of last year, I began to create an original composition, inspired to envision an image of one of the most romantic and magical female figures of all time, Sleeping Beauty.

A fragment of the drawing Sleeping Beauty by fine artist Elena V. Baranoff

Summer 2011, California

Copyright Elena V. Baranoff

The detailed drawing was complete that same summer, and the fine art painting is now in progress.

A drawing, in the creation of a never before seen, original painting, is the most momentous embodiment of a dream or vision of an artist, first born in the imagination. 

The objective of a fine artist, to form that dream into a visual reality with the help of a simple pencil and paper, can be complex or elementary, depending on the strength of the artist’s natural and later nurtured talent. 

This monumental moment in the creation of a new work of art can bravely and boldly be proclaimed a miracle.