Elaine is constantly responding to a work's promptings, allowing her brush gestures rather than analytical precepts to govern the emerging image. It is a thoroughly intuitive process. A certain area will engage her attention and its presence will then be augmented through scumbles of brush and palette knife markings. Chiaroscuro contrasts of light and shadow are softened by the technique of sfumato. Derived from the Italian word fumo, meaning ‘smoke', the tones are so subtly blended that the transitions between them become imperceptible. There are no defined edges or shapes, everything is mutable - coalescing and dissolving in emulation of the cloud formations that inspired the painting. The viewer enters a lofty, rarefied realm. Elaine's art offers transcendence; a state of alignment with evanescent Nature that is far from the everyday world of routine and objectivity.