Art Show September 5th and you are invited!

I am excited to invite you to my art show opening September 5th at Future Shock in Portland Oregon:

I have been painting nonstop in preparation for this show so that I could treat you to a bunch of new paintings, many of which will be making their debut at the opening.

So are you coming? Check out the event page to see peeks of some of my new work for the show. Hope to see you there!

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EYES a psychedelic body paint experiment

I am happy to be experimenting with more color body painting outside of my strictly black and white body art series Earth Goddess. I wanted to share with you my most recent color body art experience:

It all started out with this concept sketch done on sticker paper. 

and then paint to flesh!

The actual body painting took around 4 hours to do.

My friend and model Hannah was very patient and so we had fun hanging out as I painted her on the sunny nude beach of Sauvie Island in Portland Oregon. 

By the time I was finished with the body painting, the sun was beginning to set. I loved the colors in the sky, and the overall mellow lighting produced. 

And yes, I used creepy cat heads to censor this photo. The original was deleted by Instagram & Facebook because it violated the online communities puritanical rules against posting photos of the human body. I am deeply conflicted about having to censor my art, but using disturbing cat head stickers has made it a lil less painful. Why must society perpetuate fear and shame of the human body? Why do we treat our bodies as profane and distasteful things? 

The nudity found throughout my art is an innocent, natural non sexualized nudity. And for those who find my work offensive, well get your mind out of the gutter. 

And on that happy note...Much love! 

-Chelsea Rose 

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Beyond the Tentacle, Nautilus painting and show

Have a look at another new painting of mine:

Saint Nautilus

16"x20"

original acrylic painting on canvas

by Chelsea Rose

It all started out with a call to artists for a Cephalopod( marine animals like octopus, squid, cuttlefish, Nautilus and more) themed group show at Good: a gallery.  

I was instantly drawn to the Nautilus because of its amazing spiral shell. So I drew a concept sketch:

pen and ink concept sketch

I liked my drawing enough that I quickly transferred it onto a canvas I had painted a watery background on with acrylic:

pen and ink drawing on top of acrylic painted canvas

Then I started working on the base color layers 

Once the colors were worked out I began adding details

The show's deadline came up quick so I rushed to complete the piece. 

Here she is all done, just before leaving my home studio to drop her off at the gallery

The opening show at Good: a gallery was lots of fun with some wonderful art. 

Here are some photos from the event:

Here I am, very happy with the placement of my painting, super stoked to be showing alongside some really wonderful works of art! 

My good friend Darci ( Silly. Weird. Things. ) with her awesome alien tentacle lady painting!

All in all, I was very inspired by this group show and had a great time being a part of it. If you are in PDX this month, July, do take a moment to pop in and check out the art! 

Much love,

-Chelsea Rose 

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The Last Mermaid new original acrylic painting

Meet my newest acrylic painting:

The Last Mermaid

36"x48"

original acrylic painting on canvas

by Chelsea Rose 

 Its my first painting that features an obvious reference to death. While I was not aiming to create a melancholy piece, I was exploring "tender aches" that present themselves during times of loss. The loss represented here could be a metaphor for a loved one passing, or a loss of belief or even a loss or dyeing out of tradition, tale, dream or magic.

 If you look closely, the pink figure holds the mermaid close, her head bent to the side, the corner of her lip turning up in a subtle smile. I was hoping to capture a calm warmth in her features that spoke of the sweetness of love, honor and remembrance. I placed the mermaid and her mourner amidst a cityscape, hinting at the possibility the mermaid could no longer survive within the modern day Babylonian way of life. Perhaps her death can be attribuated to pollution by the city, or perhaps the city's simple lack of belief in her existence.  

Anyhoo, those are some of my personal intentions, or perceptions of the painting. I invite the viewer to read the image in any way they wish, eyes unclouded by my own musings! 

Now, on to the creative process! I did a fairly good job at documenting the creation of this painting so I thought it would be interesting to share with you. 

It all began with a drawing in my sketchbook: 

I drew this concept sketch over 4 months ago! I used a mix of india ink pens and paint pens as well as some watered down acrylic paint.

I finally made up my mind to paint the concept, thus I started the painting in early April.

By April 15th I had everything roughed out in a the first layer of color.

Now I started to add another layer of color for skin, refining the design by adding highlights in the forms while using black to explore the details of eyes, hair, face and costume.

By May I had begun more work on the background cityscape, adding details like streetlights and a bridge.

Here is a compare and contrast comp I made. The top is before, the bottom is after. I added another layer of color, highlight and shadow to the skin of both figures. I also made some changes to the corset and skirt design of the pink one. I changed up the hair colors of the mermaid as well. In the background you can see before, and after the addition of the bridge and a second closer layering of buildings.

Here is a studio snapshot of the painting in its "work in progress" state.

And this photo was taken this past weekend, June 21st. You can see I added some drastic changes to the sky, with many pulsating orbs, somewhat akin to "Starry Night", as well as the final layer of color, highlight and shadow on the main figures. And that was that!

I am excited to debut her during my solo show at Future shock in September!  I will be offering prints in my etsy shop as well, so keep an eye out for them!

I hope you enjoy the finished piece, and found it interesting to see it's process of creation.

Thanks for the support!

With love,
-Chelsea Rose 

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My new mini paintings and Nectar Cafe display

I finally got around to utilizing a bunch of scrap wood I had been saving for painting supports. Have a look at the end result:

Wormhole Goddess

7"x7" original acrylic painting on scrap wood

 by Chelsea Rose

available for $65 here.

Dryad

3.5"x10.5" original acrylic painting on scrap wood 

by Chelsea Rose 

available for $65 here

Fish of Perception

4"x11" original acrylic painting on scrap wood

 by Chelsea Rose 

available for $75 here

Pot Head

9"x6" original acrylic painting on wood cut

 by Chelsea Rose

 available for $75 here

I also have a few of the these minis plus a bunch of my other paintings on display at an awesome funky lil local business, Nectar Cafe. Here are a few photos to hopefully entice you to visit:

So yes, If you can make it out to Nectar cafe soon, you should go check out my art, prints and pendants(My work will be up for the month of June and the first half of July.) Also, I have had the ginger lemonade and its amazing. I also hear their jalapeño waffle sandwich is super yummy.

 Support small business! Support independent artists! Why? Cuz its good for the soul as well as the local and global community. 

With love,

-Chelsea Rose 

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Artists on Board

If you are more then a casual follower of my work you may have noticed my love for painting on broken skateboard decks. Well, I recently got involved with the people at Art Deck Co and their touring skateboard art show known as Artists on Board, and thus ended up painting a full deck! To kick off the tour they had a massive art bash that featured close to 300 artists and their paintings on skateboards.

Here is the skateboard I painted for the show:

"Keepers of the Seed"

original acrylic painting on skateboard deck

by Chelsea Rose

original available through ArtDeckCo for $200

 Here I am posing with my board at the show:

I had so much fun! There were so many amazing deck paintings it was very difficult to pick a favorite. And to top it all off they had MearOne visiting from LA doing a live painting on stage. All in all, I was pretty stoked to be a part of the show and I am excited that my board will be traveling as the show does its tour circuit. 

In other news, a sellecton of my paintings and art pendants are up at Nectar Cafe for the next month and a half:

So...if you happen to be in Portland, come have some coffee or tea and take a moment to look at my art. 

Blessings,

-Chelsea 

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Spray Paint Mural Experiment at the Eugene Oregon Free Wall

Finally having a good stretch of time off from my day job I was able to make the drive out to the Eugene Oregon free wall ( since Portland doesn't have one, which is a total outrage!)

My comfort zone with painting is using a brush, and I have painted several murals in this method as you can see here. However I have recently developed an interest in spray painting, especially after becoming a member of the Murals and Girls team. Before my trip out to Eugene I made a few experiments with the medium, by doing so on pieces of scrap board which you can see here. But I had never done any large pieces on a wall, so Eugene was my first big spray painting experiment. Have a look:

I began without a set concept sketch on paper but with the idea of painting two opposing goddess/alien/faery creature girls, with their hair sort of swirling together mid wall. So, first I sketched out a rough outline of the first character and began to fill her in.

My first creature lady filled out pretty quickly and so after I felt most of her color had been roughed out, I put down the black lines and moved on to start roughing out her sister's outline and color.

Once I had both of them roughed out, I went back in an added some final highlights and details, and then went back over everything with black...that is, till I ran out of black! Lesson learned: bring triple of every color and perhaps even quadruple of black and white!

And then I was all done! Here I am feeling a lil tired but mostly happy and accomplished.

All in all, I spent around 2 and a half hours painting, had lots of fun and learned so so much. I hope to make another trip out there soon to continue my experimentations with spray painting. Maybe next time I will do a mermaid creature lady! We shall see.

In other news, my art will be showing at Nectar Cafe for the next month and a half, and will also be on display at the Tea Zone & Camellia Lounge for the month of June. And come August, I am pretty excited about a solo exhibition at Future Shock gallery! Will post more on all of this soon.

Also there are plenty of new items in my online shop to grab up!


(a photo from this past week's Last Thursday Art walk on Alberta, showing off a bunch of new art goodies)

I added some art prints of several of my recent acrylic paintings and there are now 10 of my handmade art pendants listed and ready to go to a good home!

 So go visit my shop, and support the arts cuz mama needs some mo' spray paint ;)

Much love always,
-Chelsea Rose

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