painting

New Artwork: Incursion

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As was the case with my last new artwork, I began this painting while in residency at BROTA and the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden but didn’t finish it until now! It’s another painting of the water hyacinth - an attractive plant that due to human spread is now an invasive menace.

My first painting of this plant, Adrift, is intentionally more flat and graphic. It focuses on shape, color, and contour. In this painting, I wanted to add more realism through volume, depth, detail, and light via water reflection. The substrate is another beautiful handmade paper by Ato Menegazzo Papeles in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This is Incursion, acrylic on artisanal handmade paper, 19.5x15.5”, 2023.

Shelby Prindaville's second painting of a water hyacinth.

New Artwork: Adrift

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Every artist has a few pieces they’ve started but not yet finished… and then time passes. Some of them kick around for months or years before they get picked back up again - if they ever do!

This painting is a piece I began during my 2019 Argentinian artist residency at BROTA and the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden. I got it quite close to being finished at the time, but there were a few touches left to add… and upon my return to the US, I shifted focus to moving houses and beginning the next school year, then COVID hit… and I just never returned to it until recently!

This is a painting of a water hyacinth, which is simultaneously a beautiful tropical aquatic plant native to South America and also a globally invasive scourge. In places where it can withstand the winters, it quickly multiplies until it covers all the available surface area of bodies of water. In doing so, it not only crowds out other, native surface plants and can make surface transportation difficult (for both people and wildlife), but it also shades out the underwater ecosystem. Along with many other territories, it is an invasive plant in the US Southeast, and at one point the US Congress considered but ultimately didn’t pass a bill to introduce hippopotamus to Louisiana to help manage the water hyacinth population.

This is Adrift, acrylic on artisanal handmade paper, 19.25x14.5”, 2023.

"Adrift" water hyacinth painting by artist Shelby Prindaville.

UPROAR Magazine Cover Image and Feature!

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Louisiana State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine just launched a new magazine, titled UPROAR. For its inaugural Spring 2023 issue, my painting Wild Card is on the cover and a feature story on my trailblazing artist residency is inside! Here’s a digital version to check out, with some screenshots included below. Hopefully I’ll receive contributor’s copies in the mail soon!

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s inaugural Spring 2023 issue of UPROAR Magazine has cover artwork by Shelby Prindaville as well as a feature story on her trailblazing artist residency.

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s inaugural Spring 2023 issue of UPROAR Magazine includes a feature story on Shelby Prindaville’s trailblazing artist residency.

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s inaugural Spring 2023 issue of UPROAR Magazine includes a feature story on Shelby Prindaville’s trailblazing artist residency.

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s inaugural Spring 2023 issue of UPROAR Magazine includes a feature story on Shelby Prindaville’s trailblazing artist residency.

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s inaugural Spring 2023 issue of UPROAR Magazine includes Shelby Prindaville’s cover artwork and a feature story on her trailblazing artist residency.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 5

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This is actually the first piece I began here at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine! I never know how to properly answer people as to how long a piece of artwork takes to finish, as my optimal process involves working on several different pieces simultaneously. If you count start to finish, I worked on it for a month and five days - however, there were a number of days in there that I didn’t touch this piece or only worked on it for a couple of hours…

The subject in this piece is a three-day-old baby Nubian goat; she was fully healthy but was brought in to accompany her brother who was failing to thrive and unfortunately didn’t make it.

Singularity, mixed media including Clinical Pathology’s Diff-Quik Eosin Y stain, Clinical Skills' fluorescein, Histology’s light green stain, and acrylic on basswood panel, 12x24x1.5”, 2022.

A mixed media painting of a baby Nubian goat in triplicate.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 2

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Here’s my second finished piece from my LSU Vet Med artist residency! I’m still mulling over the title - my current tentative selection is Wild Card, but I’m open to other suggestions.

I’ve met a lot of very cool animals here already, so this is high praise indeed - this is my favorite animal I’ve met thus far. ZooMed has a superstition they observe: you cannot name a wildlife patient, or its health will go downhill. This little fellow therefore doesn’t have a name, but he’s a real character. He has charisma and attitude in spades. When I arrived, he was a nestling and still had these “Einstein” feathers he’s rocking in the below image, but he’s now a fledgling and is getting closer to release every day!

I specifically chose the elongated landscape aspect ratio of this panel as mimicking the dimensions of the pathology slides. The coloration of the background comes from my novel usage of veterinary stains and medicine as art media, and I continued that color palette into the subject as well. However, as you’ll understand more clearly in the process post I’ll make soon, there was a lot of trial and error in the creation of the background, and a cyan coloration that was produced ended up quickly going almost entirely fugitive (bleached out). I reinforced it with acrylic droplets as a final step.

This is a mixed media painting of a wild brown thrasher nestling including Clinical Pathology's Diff-Quik methylene blue counter stain, Histology's light green stain, ZooMed's chlorhexidine antiseptic, and acrylic on basswood panel, 10x20x1.5", 2022.



LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 1

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I always aim to capture a sense of place or atmosphere in my residencies, and in this artist residency at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine I have decided to incorporate medicines, pathology and histology stains, as well as veterinary chemicals, tools, and resources into each of my pieces as art media. (I have no idea how archival some will be - particularly how lightfast and stable the pigmentation of the medicines, stains, and chemicals is - but the evolution of how the artworks age will be interesting to witness and document, too!)

As you may already know, I work on multiple pieces of artwork simultaneously, so the first piece I start isn’t always the first to finish. This piece is actually the second one I began! It is of a Mississippi kite which is a beautiful raptor, and there were three here upon my arrival - two wild kites and one that has been habituated as an ambassador or resident raptor. The depicted wild bird is in a defensive stress posture, trying to look as big as possible so as to protect itself from predators.

This artwork incorporates ZooMed's PVP Prep Solution: povidone-iodine 10% topical antiseptic (also known as Betadine) and Integrative Medicine's AcuZone smokeless moxa-rolls for both the background and feet.  There’s also a bit of the Betadine on the eyes over a base of acrylic.

I have titled this piece Fortification, and it is a mixed media painting including the aforementioned veterinary materials as well as acrylic and cornstarch on basswood panel, 20x20x1.5”, 2022.

Storm Drain Decoration in My Painting I Class!

Timed for Earth Day and in collaboration with the Sioux City Environmental Advisory Board and the Morningside Sustainability Committee, my ART 225 Painting I class took on an extra-credit project to decorate two campus storm drains with goals of raising awareness (what goes into the storm drains comes right back out again without mediation into a local creek that feeds into Bacon Creek which feeds into the Missouri River) and beautification.

The first storm drain we painted on Earth Day itself, and there was a bunch of press interested in documenting it! We had crews from Morningside’s Marketing Department, the city of Sioux City, local ABC News affiliate KCAU 9, and the Sioux City Journal documenting our work, which was pretty fun.

Here’s a group photo of the completed piece, which is directly in front of the Morningside community gardens! The paint we used will hopefully hold up for a while, but when it eventually flakes off, it is biodegradable and should not contribute to the problem of storm drain pollution.

Me and my ART 225 Painting I students who worked on the Morningside Community Garden storm drain site!

A second group of ART 225 Painting I students and I painted a second site which is located across from our new agricultural greenhouse the following Tuesday. The weather was colder than we’d have liked, but we persevered! Note that some chalk blueprints are still visible in the photo but will be rinsed away with the next rain.

Me and my ART 225 Painting I students who worked on the new agricultural greenhouse storm drain site, minus one who had to leave a bit early.

New Painting: Velocity

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Happy New Year! I’ve been hard at work painting a painted turtle; it was a beast to draw and quite demanding to paint as well because of all of the pattern and detail.

I met this baby painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) while biking the Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve - I felt very lucky to have spotted its dollar-coin-sized stature along the trail!

This is Velocity, acrylic on basswood panel, 14x14x1.5”, 2021.

BROTA and Buenos Aires Artwork 1

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I’ve been working on two different series of artwork from the start using the new-to-me methylcellulose and chromatography papers, but both are very experimental and I’m not sure exactly what the finished products should even look like at this point. That’s why I’ve yet to reveal much in terms of production other than a couple early test images from the chromatography papers.

However, I started feeling anxious about how experimental I’m being - of course it’s good to experiment, but I wanted the comfort of completing a more traditionally “me” type of piece with a clear end point. Plus, I bought those artisanal handmade papers from Ato Menegazzo Papeles, and it would be a shame not to even work on some while here!

This not-quite-finished painting is of a dwarf water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes. The common names in Spanish for this plant are (as per Wikipedia): jacinto de agua, flor de bora, camalote, aguapey, lechuguín, tarope, tarulla o reyna. I chose this plant in particular because I love how graphic and full of character it is, and the fact that it’s an aquatic plant means that the whole of the plant, including its root system, can be shown in a figure-ground relationship that also celebrates the handmade paper. Water hyacinth is an ornamental plant that is occasionally consumed and used medicinally, but is also highly invasive in warm climates and is often illegal to own or sell. An interesting dichotomy that inspired my current tentative title: Adrift.

More Magazine Publications - Arkana and Fearsome Critters!

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Two of my pieces, Stool Pigeon and Street Smart, were selected for publication in Fearsome Critters Volume 2. Fearsome Critters is an arts journal originally founded in association with Northwest Missouri State University but now independently run.

I also don’t think I’ve yet shared that in December my oil pastel on panel Flight was chosen for Arkana’s Issue 5. Arkana is a magazine run out of the University of Central Arkansas. I had three or four publications come out all at once and I just realized that posting about Arkana accidentally fell through the cracks - until now!

New Artwork: Guardian

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This toad, who I named Reginald, was one of the guardians of my porch this summer and fall. His presence was so regal and dutiful that I felt he required a portrait. He posed for it with the resigned tolerance and grace befitting of a conscientious public servant.

This is Guardian, acrylic on basswood panel, 16x20x1.5”.

New Artwork: Puffinry

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I haven't actually added paint to this piece in a couple months, but I also hadn't decided it was done either.  I'm finally willing to call it and say it's officially finished!

This piece is acrylic on birch panel, 20x10", and is titled Puffinry.

New Artwork: Convergence

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Here's a new painting I just finished; I started it during my La Pedrada de Noemi residency, but I didn't get a chance to finish it there so I've been working on it since arriving back home.  It's actually the first painting I began while on residency, so given that you might wonder why it took so long to complete - the answer is that the support is an aluminum panel, and I've never worked on aluminum before.  What I wanted to do on the aluminum kind of clashed with what the aluminum wanted me to do with it, so we had a prolonged battle.  I didn't want to prime or even sand the aluminum, because I feel like the whole point of painting on aluminum is the luminosity of the material.  But not priming it meant that the paint wouldn't evenly stick.  I feel like I eventually came out the victor, though!

The painting is acrylic on aluminum panel, 18x14", and is titled Convergence.  It features a luna moth (Actias luna) atop a barrel jellyfish (Rhizostoma pulmo).

La Pedrada de Noemi Artwork 5

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And another one - I've done a piece on a very similar frog in relief before (The Slightest Disturbance), and now here's a painting from a different angle of a marsh frog, Rana ridibunda and/or Pelophylax ridibundus, from the Jardín Botánico Canario Viera y Clavijo.  This piece is acrylic on gessobord, 5x7", and is titled Comfort Zone.

La Pedrada de Noemi Artwork 3

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This piece is rather quiet, even though it features a loud subject - the Ornate Wrasse, Thalassoma pavo.  I am particularly pleased with the background, which is in keeping with my overall style but also references the refraction patterns of the ocean.  I also think this painting shows that though the Ornate Wrasse is brightly colored, it can blend in surprisingly well.

It is acrylic on pastelbord, 9x12", and I'm still wrestling with the title.

La Pedrada de Noemi Artwork 2

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This acrylic on gessobord is quite small - only 5x7" - and purposefully awkward.  To me it's simultaneously uncomfortable and amusing.  The subject is a redlip or horseface blenny, Ophioblennius atlanticus.  I'm titling it Stage Left.  This painting also uses iridescent gold in both the background and the eyes, so it too is more arresting in person than in photo.

La Pedrada de Noemi Artwork 1

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Here's the first finished piece of artwork from my residency!  It features two Canary damselfish, Similiparma lurida and/or Abudefduf luridus.  There are a lot of this species in the Zoco Negro where I went snorkeling and had my scuba diving "baptism."  The males are territorial, and this species is occasionally called sergeant major (though the name more commonly applies to a different damselfish species).  I've decided to name this painting Reconnaissance.  It is acrylic on pastelbord, 11x14", and looks even nicer in person because the water and the eyes of the fish have iridescent silver and gold paint on them, respectively, and so they shine intensely depending on viewer angle and interior light levels.

New Artwork!

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I just completed a new piece of artwork - the second companion piece to Pilgrim.  I had intended to do at least two from the start, but it took a while to find the studio time to devote to the second piece.

In this one, I wanted to achieve a real sense of depth in my relief without being cartoonish.  My aim was to maintain the possibility of illusionism from some angles - particularly that of the shallower sections.  With Pilgrim, there is a relatively shallow relief over the entirety of the sloth's body.  In this new piece, the sloth's body contains an area that is solely painted with no relief at all and then extremely shallow through rather bold relief.

I'm considering titling this one Outreach.  It's Quick Cure Clay and acrylic on basswood panel, 12x6x1.75", 2018.  Due to the dimensions of the piece, it shows up quite large below; if you click on it though it will open up in an overlay that depending on your monitor and settings will probably be smaller and more of a gestalt.

Below you can see a couple in-progress photos of the relief work before I applied paint.