The BRG Weekly Artist Compendious

Palm Sunday, 30x20" Oil on canvas ©1997 by Susan Talbot-Elliott

Every week we will be profile a different artist, some contemporary and some from the past. We will not limit ourselves to any single art form, but look at artist from many different disciplines.

This week’s featured artist is, Susan Talbot Elliott. Elliott studied fine and commercial art at Marymount Manhattan College and began her career as a commercial artist in New York City. She later left New York to pursue a new career in Business Administration. However, in 1987, she returned to her original career choice of oil painting.

Since returning to art her work has appeared in juried exhibits at the National Arts Club and the Salmagundi Club in New York City, the Patio Azul Gallery in Arizona, the Art Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke, The Lynchburg Fine Arts Center, the Lynchburg Art Club in Lynchburg, and the Shenandoah Valley Art Center in Waynesboro, VA, and in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Her paintings have appeared in over twenty solo and group gallery exhibits as well.

Susan Talbot Elliott has paintings and commissioned portraits in private collections throughout New York, Maryland, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia. She is a signature member of Knickerbocker Artists, USA, an active member of the Lynchburg Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, and holds an associate membership to the Allied Artists of America.

Elliott’s works are painted in a natural realism style. Their subjects are often biographical in content. Her sources of inspiration include nature, an innate interest in painting the human face and figure, and a desire to explore relationships between objects and their symbolism.

Elliott speaks on method:

I often begin with a pencil sketch to establish the composition and to balance the tonal values of a painting. If I'm not certain about the coloration of an area or if the painting will be larger than 20 x 24, I will also do an oil sketch on paper. I use the grid method to transfer an image to the canvas if I'm working from a photo and the image is complex. My preferred way to work, though, is directly from life. I tone the canvas with a warm color, and when it is dry, I work in the shadow areas. I continue with the local color through the whole canvas, already paying attention to soft and hard edges. When this layer is dry, I continue by focusing in on each area and working it to near completion, keeping in mind the tonal composition worked out on the pencil sketch. At the end I put in the finishing touches, highlights, and deeper shadows, more color in the shadows or sharpening or softening edges.

Susan Talbot Elliott is represented by Fisher Galleries in Washington, D.C., Cudahy's Gallery in Richmond, Studios On The Square Gallery in Roanoke and The Little Gallery on Smith Mt. Lake in Moneta, Virginia.

Contact Information:
3551 Gregory Lane
Lynchburg, VA 24503
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