Inspiring Image: Abstract Reality

“Japanese Lady With Fan”, George Henry (1858-1943)

Here’s a lovely painting that I’ve admired for years. What I most respond to in this piece is the wonderful marriage of abstract and realism. George Henry, a Scottish painter, masterfully designed a beautiful, rich canvas with varied colors and edges. For a relatively small painting, there is much to keep the viewer’s eye engaged, and the entire painting has a lovely decorative quality about it.

Quite magically, we begin to realize the head of a geisha has been placed right in the center of the image. Her head is turned away in a demure fashion that enhances the mystery and intrigue of her character. It is also a clever device to help the artist keep readily identifiable features of her face from taking away from the overall abstract quality.

The Pensive Palette: A Touch Of Spring

“Touch of Spring”, 18”x24”, acrylic on board

As we begin to thaw from the winter chill, we look forward to longer days and the return of our feathered friends from holiday. I like to imagine nature is a great theatrical stage and the critters are the players. Birds are my favorite “actors” and always add a spark of life to a wilderness experience.  Here’s a little touch of spring for your viewing pleasure!

From Behind The Easel: Simile

    

 

“Simile," 21”x15,” acrylic on board

When I decided to paint a river otter, I wanted to capture the spirit of an animal that straddles both aquatic and terrestrial realms. As a mammal, the otter is most closely linked with other small land-based critters. But the otter is probably happiest in the water where it has evolved into a sleek, supple swimmer. I wanted to celebrate both sides of the otter.

The concept of the otter painting came from thinking of the otter’s complementary opposite worlds; land and water. With this is mind I decided to create a composition based on the Chinese yin and yang symbol. You can see the S shape divide between the water and rock, and the dark of the otter opposite the light, reflective water. The otter’s curved body and the bubbling water in the lower left help guide the eye around and back into the painting. I wanted the water itself to emulate the smooth, twisting nature of a swimming otter while the otter itself is at rest. This helps visually link the animal with its environment while maintaining an overall calm, almost zen-like feeling.

From Behind The Easel: Miniature Show

“Early Spring," 9”x12,” acrylic on board 

“Liquid Gold," 12”x9,” acrylic on board

These two images are my own work, and will be included in the Miniature Show at Collector’s Covey Gallery. You can learn about the show here and see my past work for it here.

The Pensive Palette: The Value of Art

The most important component of creating anything visual is value and value relationships.  Value is the how light or dark something appears and is based on a grey scale with black and white at the ends of the scale.  Although we describe them as colors, black, white, and the neutral greys in between are not technically colors, but values of light and dark.  Every color, however, has a value that is used to describe its lightness or darkness.  This is particularly helpful when trying to see the relative differences in values between multiple colors.

When designing a image, it is paramount to think in times of value before color.  Experience allows an artist to see value and color at the same time, but it is still helpful to work in black and white (and grey) in the early stages of design.  Color rarely saves a bad value design and usually only furthers the issue.  In fact, when an artist begins with a strong eye for value , almost any color scheme can be used as long as the colors chosen match the values in the design.

In my painting, “Magnificat”, you can see how I’ve used many colors to enhance the visual interest of the lion, but in black and white the values of those colors are similar enough to not distract from the overall design. 

The Pensive Palette: Opposites Attract

The Pensive Palette: Opposites Attract

'Annika At One' | Aug 26, 2001 | 16”x12” Acrylic on board

When I decided to paint our eldest daughter on her first birthday, I chose to work in a fairly simple and classic portrait format.  I wanted the emphasis to be on her without a lot of distractions…
In order to keep the painting interesting and alive, I made color choices from a design point of view.  In this case, I employed complimentary or “opposite” colors.  These are the colors that are across from each other on the color wheel and are often used to enhance contrast. 

The main complementary pair I used was blue and orange, but there is also the yellow/purple pairing.  In order to make all of these colors work together, I chose blue to be my dominant color so the four colors wouldn’t compete.  I also made sure to desaturate most of the colors to keep them all fairly quiet.  Orange, the complement of my dominant blue, is the most saturated color.  This was done to help emphasize her hair and the shovel and create visual points of interest for the eye to go between.

I made the shadow side of her face a very subtle purple to give our eyes a break from the dominant blue.  In order to give this purple shadow a bit of color harmony, the background on the right side of the painting tends toward yellow.  Because I kept these colors quite desaturated, they do not look garish.  In fact, if you look closely you will see all of the colors of the rainbow in the painting, but desaturation keeps the color palette—and the final painting— in balance.

From Behind The Easel: The Subject for Subject's Sake

From Behind The Easel: The Subject for Subject's Sake

Tiger Study | 9" x 12" | oil on canvas 

Sometimes subject matter is so inspiring that it needs little else— in this case, I was moved to simply paint a tiger portrait without an environment, without strong action, without needing to show him doing more than being his magnificent self.

This vignette is oil on canvas— I chose background colours to imply a natural setting through rhythm and variation as well as to complement the tiger’s brilliant coat.

We met this tiger personally at a reserve in California… his magnetic presence and the stunning impression of being a few feet away from this powerful cat gave me such a profound sense of respect that I felt moved to paint him.