Gail Niebrugge's Blog
Here I am carrying one of the big bird paintings up the Palmer courthouse steps ready to be installed. Our trusty helpers, Seth Blanchard and Shane McGraw from Sign Co, Anchorage, installing the last two Sandhill crane paintings in the lobby. Seth and I checking out the view from the scissors lift. What are all [...]
Here are photos of the seven individual pieces of art to be installed today in the lobby and right hallway of the Palmer Courthouse. The title of the entire work is “Seven Sandhills Soaring”. Crane #4b, 33″x 48″ ©Gail Niebrugge Crane #5b, 46″ x 51″ ©Gail Niebrugge Crane #11c, 32″ x 43″ ©Gail Niebrugge Crane [...]
The painters arrived today at the Palmer Courthouse, ready to paint the upper walls in preparation for installation of my artwork on Thursday, November 11, Veterans Day, while the building is closed. This scissor lift will be used to access the high walls to paint and for the installation. I am anxious to get the [...]
I’ve been working on the commission for the Palmer Courthouse since late June, the seven odd shaped panels propped helter skelter against the walls of my studio have become a part of me. I’ve finally started to pull the dots together with some detail and the compositions are becoming three dimensional. The devil is in [...]
The Palmer Courthouse commission consists of seven irregularly shaped panels, all quite large, and is requiring many, many, hours layering dots. I’ve begun the second layer on all seven panels and will not begin the final details until all panels are at the same level of completion. The panels are taking on a very dark [...]
These thumbnail details show how beautiful and varied in color the first layer of dots are as I apply them over the loose brush stroke under painting on the seven panels for the Palmer Courthouse Entry. The key to my style of representational realism is choosing the correct values for the dots, any color can [...]
During the last several months I’ve been designing, fabricating and painting seven panels for the Palmer Courthouse Entry % for Art commission, it is a big project by my standards and will require tens of thousands of dots of acrylic paint when finished. The project is being painted on one of my favorite surfaces, Sintra, [...]
Gail Niebrugge (Knee-brew-ghe) born and raised in California has pursued art since childhood, winning a poster contest on the Johnny Jet television show at the age of twelve. Gail began her career as an illustrator for the US Navy and Marines in San Diego, and later established the Instructional Media Center for the Grossmont High School District in La Mesa, California. The Niebrugge family fell in love with Alaska while on vacation in 1976 and never returned home, instead they established a residence and studio in the remote interior settlement of Copper Center where the artist painted … [Read More...]
Wikipedia defines pointillism as; "a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colors create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colors." It goes on to say that the mind and the eye mix the color spots into a full range of tones and that it is closely related to Divisionism. Divisionism was practiced by Georges Seurat during the Neo-Impressionism period. He broke his color into basic elements and painted very small and regular dots. His dots are carefully placed as to not touch each other, so the white under painted canvas shows around all of the dots. I call my painting technique pointillism, but technically it is incorrect according to Wikipedia. The difference between my technique and true pointillism is that I use … [Read More...]