What's New in Julliette Carignan's World?

Welcome to My Art Website!

2014 Update: I haven't been posting many new works on my site the past few years since I've been working primarily on a series of large works that I won't post until after the completion of the whole body of work.

This winter I did quite a bit of life drawing. Not only was it a thoroughly enjoyable activity and great practice, but it reminded me how much I have always loved drawing. I've posted a handful of the drawings on my drawing page.

2007 provided extraordinary opportunity, first to paint in Italy with a group of fellow artists, and then to attend Scott Christensen's Intensive 10 day workshop in Idaho. Both of those plein air experiences and another outdoor Vermont workshop in late 2006 were so fantastic that, through the rest of 2007, I couldn't resist continuing to paint en plein air back home in New England, largely in order to put into practice all I had learned from Scott Christensen and Albert Handell.

Despite having painted a good deal in 2007, since I was highly challenged by limiting myself to much shorter sessions than I can actually handle, most of 2007's works are not worthy of posting or have joined the hundreds of other in-process paintings that fill shelves in my studio. I keep hoping to have time to finish at least the best of them, but time is in short supply and too often I'm more inclined to be outdoors and begin new works than resume work on unfinished ones.

While I have every intention of carrying out the series of large studio paintings I committed to in 2005, my self-assigned MFA program equivalent, currently I'm taking a time-out to honor my recognition of the need to revisit drawing skills and explore new ideas and techniques through plein air practice. I trust this "back-to-basics" and further development will make the studio paintings stronger when I return to them.

2005 News:

I'm excited this year about a new series of paintings I've just begun. Since this will be a large body of new work that I don't anticipate completing until 2008 or 2009, it'll be a while before any of these works are exhibited and then posted. I consider this project to be the equivalent of a Master's in Fine Art program. I'll refrain from revealing too many details until the series is completed, but I just wanted to give you a sneak preview that there'll be some new work coming. What I will say is that this is a series of studio paintings that are larger and significantly more complex than the smaller pieces I've primarily been doing since I've been working mostly en plein air. I encourage you to send me an email if you'd like me to let you know when I finish this series, if you'd like to be among the first to see it.

Upcoming International Exhibition: I've been invited to exhibit in Paris this month in the 1st International Fair devoted to small format in contemporary art (officially: 1er Salon International des petits format dans l'art d'aujourd'hui a Paris). Click here if you want to see the the show invitation.

I've just exhibited in the inaugural exhibiton of Belmont Gallery of Art, my town's brand new, very attractive gallery. The juried show included one work each of 59 selected Belmont artists, most of whom are also professional artists. There's great enthuasiam as this exhibition has brought to light so many talented artists whom there's been no way to know about or meet!

News of 2003 and 2004: I was very fortunate to get to go on three very fun and visually inspiring trips in '03 and '04. I was also lucky to be able to do all my photography (one of my long-time avid interests) using a new digital camera. The availabilility thereafter of thousands of terrific digital images sparked a new creative joy from of creating quite elaborate photo books, which made use of a layout skill I've always really enjoyed using. The process was creatively enlivening and addictive. I spent many hundreds of hours on image selection, retouching in Photoshop , and laying out and printing of the first three of the four books. I've consciously elected to delay starting the fourth because I wanted to get back to painting. I got SUCH a great kick out of the projects. As a painter, the downside of being so lucky with trips and photography and book-making joys was that I was so busy training for and taking the trips and making the books that I didn't do get to do much painting those two years, given that, like most artists today, I also have a day job. That said, during the 2004 trip to the Dordogne in France, I did get to paint for a week, and I also got out to do several days of plein air painting on Cape Ann in the Fall. However, I haven't yet gotten to finish most of those paintings. Now that I'm into my new series, who knows if and when I will. As it is, I already have about 80 paintings to finish! I also haven't yet photographed the ones I did finish. Someday!

Written in 2003 when I finished Phase II of the site development, the addition of the detail pages: I'm excited to share this site with you! All the full-size image pages that give details about each painting are available if you haven't checked out the site in awhile.

There is now a Current Directions page. This page brings together the paintings that are representative of the style and subject matter I'm most interested in pursuing farther, now and into the future. It's the electronic equivalent of the slide sheet artists send to galleries. It also provides an index to the largest paintings in my collection.

I added five new paintings in 2003. There's a painting of pumpkins on the Still Life page, three new farm/rural scenes on the New England page, and a new Gloucester Harbor painting on the Boston page.

Check out this slide show of the plein air paintings done during my 2001 trip to France! (It takes several seconds to load). See my Europe Landscapes page if you want unlimited time with the paintings.