Artist Spotlight: Leslie Giuliani
R&F Core Instructor Leslie Giuliani teaching in her home studio.
This week we look at artist Leslie Giuliani's boldly colorful and playful mixed media paintings and check in to see how she is staying creative during COVID 19. Leslie has been an art instructor for over 25 years and works with a range of media from egg tempera to encaustic and digital embroidery. She teaches privately, at arts centers, colleges, and museums as well as here at R&F. Leslie’s work has been featured in two international encaustic biennial exhibitions. In 2008, she was the recipient of an Artist Fellowship Grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. We are proud to say that Leslie is one of our Core Instructors!
Leslie, how are you staying creative during COVID 19?
I just closed my show at Western CT State University right before the pandemic hit. Now with this big event ended, I decided to be experimental without any specific deadline pressure. My go-to is making complex Encaustic Monotypes on Encaustiflex to use as backgrounds for my embroidered images. I combine Encaustic, Pigment Sticks, Pan Pastels, and Paper Lithography in a very free and non-goal oriented way to learn more about combining and layering materials. This all will come in handy when I get back to teaching in-person classes and can share what I have learned with other artists.
Are you finding ways to teach and mentor students from home?
I am trying to figure out how I can best serve my artist community virtually. I reached out to my entire class list offering any help they might need with regard to materials they were working with during lockdown since my classes were canceled. I got lots of thank you’s and miss you’s and many technical questions that I was able to answer for them. I am now hoping to record short demos on specific techniques, practical color theory, and design inspiration that artists can tap into to stay creative and grow during isolation.
Leslie Giuliani, Treasure Trove, 44” x 33”, encaustic painting, digital embroidery, and printmaking on textile.
What's your favorite R&F color of the moment?
I have to cheat on this and say my favorite group of colors is the "chromatic whites" like Sienna Extra Pale, Brilliant Yellow Extra Pale, Turkey Umber Pale, etc. They are also favorites in my classes for good reason.
These hints of color allow for a vibrancy where almost no color is needed but are never blank space. They support other stronger colors, which is especially useful to me since I embroider my colorful drawings on top of these subtle shades. Having them in the color line opened my eyes to make my own “extra pale” versions of colors. I now notice them in paintings by artists I admire, such as a Cadmium Red Deep version in many of Philip Guston’s pink works or a Raw Sienna version in Terry Winters’ earthy palette.
Oh, and I must give a special shout out to Ancient Gold. I paint it over top of Mars Red to create a pretty authentic faux gilded effect. Brilliant in every way.
To see more of Leslie’s work or to learn about her upcoming workshops, visit lesliegiuliani.com.
Keep painting.