Retiree Dips into Painting & Vibrancy
Eileen Lichtenfeld cites a trip to Italy for kindling her desire to create happy paintings.
After 37 years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now with the AJT, , Jaffe’s focus is lifestyle, art, dining, fashion, and community events with emphasis on Jewish movers and shakers.
For her post-professional second act, Eileen Lichtenfeld retired in 2017 from careers in accounting and marketing and reached back to an artsy trip she made to Italy in 2001 to get the motivation to pursue painting.
Lichtenfeld recalled, “Prior to retirement, my art education consisted of a trip to Europe through many of the great galleries, a few “Evening at Emory” drawing classes in the 90s, and a fabulous pastel painting trip to Italy in 2001 where I tagged along with a girlfriend who is a real artist. I learned a lot from the instructor and then did nothing with it until I retired in 2017.”
Born in Chicago, Lichtenfeld was raised in Miami which contributed to her overall aesthetic and proclivity for incorporating bold colors.
Proving that one is never too old to jump into a new pond to pursue an undeveloped talent, she continued, “The painting trip to Italy showed me that I did have some innate talent and could at least learn technique. So, I checked out all the classes offered around town and signed up for Beginning Watercolor at Spruill Center in Dunwoody — mostly because they had a class that started at 1 p.m. so I could sleep in — I am not a morning person.”
Lichtenfeld has a flair for whimsy and strives to convey happiness in her paintings. She shared, “I think most of my pieces have a lightness to them. Composition, I learned from an Emory photography class: rule of thirds; lead the eye; and when possible don’t put things right in the middle of the page.”
Since she considers herself still in the learning phase and sometimes crafts her compositions from photos or still life. She is a fan of Mother Nature but gets bored with the requisite flowers and landscapes. Lichtenfeld is drawn to movement and mood setting. She pokes fun at herself for being “too cheap to spend $50-60 on a brush.”
Other tools are salt, aqua Pasto medium, and palette knives. She prefers tubes of paint to hard pans and uses Arches brand watercolor paper. She experiments with alcohol inks and finds them to be full of energy. She also is working on pen and ink over watercolor.
Less fond of the result of using canvasses, she said, “I’m in the process of creating a new paint palette where I can have all my colors in one place.”
Lichtenfeld is known for her speed as most pieces take three to five hours from sketch to completion (excluding framing). She said, “I am a fast painter. My most involved painting (Sailboats on the Sea) took about seven hours.”
When asked what artists she favors, she holds sway for Monet and Van Gogh for their bright colors and use of movement. She recalled, “The recent Van Gogh Immersion exhibit was just amazing. I’ve been to the south of France; and it’s easy to see his inspiration. It’s very moving.”
The two pieces of which she is proudest are a couple’s portrait she painted as the wedding gift for the daughter of a close friend, and her sailboats shimmering and sparkling in the water. She also did a commission for a friend, a winter scene, which she felt was difficult to capture in watercolor.
Learning to paint later in life, Lichtenfeld has plans, “Definitely sketch it first — unless experimenting with a more abstract approach, but I’m not really a fan of abstract as my CPA brain kicks in so it needs to make sense to me. Since I work from photos, I’ve got a whole computer folder filled that I want to try. I just got back from a wedding in Highlands, N.C., which was at this beautiful vineyard where I took a photo with the sun hitting the side of the hill just right. Can’t wait to tackle that!”
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