Squiggles As Inspiration

 

 

Pen and ink on notepaper

Rough-Hewn Shapes

Isolating just one aspect of a landscape can create a powerful composition. So far I have only ever attempted this with organic shapes such as flowers in closeup. The finished picture often ends up looking like an abstract. But the image can still remain impressionistic or representational when a particular element is isolated but still recognizable.

Field Boulders is a charcoal sketch that attempts to capture the rough-hewn shapes arranged in a triangular composition with barely the suggestion of a grassy foreground. The highlights and shadows provide much to explore in the picture.

Field Boulders, Charcoal on paper, 4"x6", Not for sale

Timelessness or Obsolescence?

Aspects of rural scenes in America have a timeless quality about them. Scenes such as the one depicted in Barbed-Wire Fence are there for anyone who cares to stop and look. Even as urban sprawl continues to displace the lifestyle of rural America, there are places that steadfastly remain as they might have been a hundred years ago.

Barbed-Wire Fence was inspired by a fenced in meadow that is on my drive to work. When the traffic is slow enough for me to look, I often notice things that have been right before my eyes and I have never noticed them.

Barbed-Wire Fence, Charcoal pencil on Bristol Board, 11"x14", Not for sale

Farmland in Monochrome

Watercolor always scares me due to the apparent finality that comes from contact between color and paper. There is no way to retrace steps once brush meets paper. Yet I have seen videos of watercolorists who seem to effortlessly correct "mistakes" and produce beautiful pictures. As a result I have played with watercolor more and am finding that accidents can be turned into unanticipated creativity.

That was not the case with this farmland picture, but the challenge I set here was to produce a watercolor picture with a restricted -- almost monochromatic -- palette. I used only burnt sienna, raw sienna and ultramarine blue. The effect is a rather pleasing dusky scene that is so reminiscent of the American midwest.

Farmland in Monochrome, Watercolor on 300lb paper, 9"x12", Not for sale

Kerala Rice Paddy

Kerala is one of the world's most beautiful places and is located in the southwestern-most part of India. A couple of years ago, I had my first opportunity to spend a few days in Kerala, soaking in the beauty of the lush, tea-plantation covered mountains to the intracoastal waterways and the Indian ocean. At every turn on the narrow roads that wind through Kerala are 'paintable' sights, one of which is the rice paddies that dot the entire state.

Kerala Rice Paddy was done from memory aided by photographs. The predominant yellow-orange hue of the entire picture is intended to represent the humid tropical atmosphere that asserts itself in the late afternoon as the sun is dropping to the horizon. Unlike temperate climate landscapes, there are few cool hues in the picture. Just looking at this picture evokes memories of sweaty afternoons and long, cool drinks!

Kerala Rice Paddy, Acrylic on canvas board, 11"x14", $75 (unframed)

Tribute to Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), An American Classic

Andrew Wyeth, a beacon of the American art scene, passed away last week. Without a doubt, Wyeth was (and always will be) an American treasure. His poignant images of the American landscape (e.g. Christina's World) are readily recognizable by even those with no particular interest in fine art.

Wyeth's paintings, most in watercolor or tempera, are deceptive in their simplicity. Cleverly composed and meticulously executed, the images appear shorn of all color yet remain powerful in their depiction of images of daily life. In looking at Wyeth's paintings, I find it easy to get drawn in and then experience a lingering compulsion to wonder about the story these pictures tell. Surely, the stories that Wyeth's pictures tell are worth more than a thousand words.

Wyeth was 91 when he died in his sleep, as private in his death as he was in life. Today's post is my modest attempt to remember this giant of the art world.

Untitled, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 9"x12", Not for sale

Yet another snow scene

It has been a dismal couple of weeks in the southeast with day after day of rain and grey skies. This is quite a contrast from the usual daily doses of sunshine I am now used to after having left Michigan over three years ago.

Looking out the window and seeing mist and grey seems to have been my inspiration for the snow scenes once I got started. Birch in Snow is likely to be the last one for now, though. The rich, brilliant colors I normally use in my acrylic pieces are beckoning once again.....

Birch in Snow, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 4'x6', $20 (unframed)

Snow-laden Trio

In response to Snowy Meadow, Carol Schiff rightly pointed out the challenge of switching betweeen painting oils and acrylics, where one goes from dark to light, and painting watercolor, where the process is reversed. In watercolor, the lights must be preserved right from the beginning since there is no good way to add them afterwards.

I started Snow-laden Trio by making a loose pencil sketch. Then I used masking fluid to block out the snow both on the trees and the ground, as well as the tall leafless tree trunks. The next step was to apply the sky using a graded wash of pthalo blue. Towards the ground burnt sienna was added to the blue along with lots of water to get a weak grey wash for the foreground.

Once the wash was dry, the evergreens were laid in using a strong blue-green mix. After the trees were dry the masking fluid was peeled off, then the grasses and shading were added to the foreground. On stepping back, the hard edge between the bottom of the trees and the foreground did not seem quite right, so I softened it out with a wet brush.

Snow-laden Trio, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 9"x12", $35 (unframed)

Dreaming of Spring

Spring may not be quite around the corner but at least the days are starting to get longer. Soon the unremitting grey will start to give way to bits of color signaling a new growing season. I have tried to represent in this piece that early spot of color that can be seen in an otherwise dismal landscape. Among all the greys and browns, there are little bits of yellows and reds that begin to enliven the scenery once again before full-blown spring arrives.

Early Spring is very much a northern landscape with its steely grey sky and brown dormant foliage in the background. The streaks of white indicate retreating snow that will melt and freeze many times before it leaves. As yet the only sign of growth is the brightening grasses sticking out through the dark ice in the foreground and the distant middle ground.

Early Spring, Acrylic on canvas board, 5'x7', $25 (unframed)

Snowy Meadow in Watercolor

While I am not especially fond of snowy scenes, a reader of this blog made a special request to which I am responding in this post. Since the requester is a native of Canada with plenty of access to scenes like this, I am a bit puzzled at the request.......Anyway, here goes.

I don't often paint in watercolor so this one took some preparation and thought. The whitest streaks of snow were covered with masking fluid which was removed after the initial graded wash of pthalo and ultramarine blue. The rest was just a matter of serially laying in the trees and embellishing the foreground with some stray grasses poking through the snow. The white patches look reddish but only in the photograph -- must have been the light while I was taking the picture. In the actual painting they are a brilliant white which, mixed with the pale bluish foreground, gives the painting a "cold" look.

Snowy Meadow, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 9"x12", SOLD

Forest Light

It has been a busy few weeks (including being sick, the holidays, year-end catch-up at work, etc) and only in the past couple of days have I been able to get back to the easel. As a warm-up to a few days of concentrated painting. I decided to do a study that began with big masses of color from which I have tried to draw out complex forms that seem to represent a forest view.

Strong backlighting as a technique is at once easy and difficult for me. Easy because it allows drawing out color and form to create striking pictures. At the same time, it can be quite difficult to avoid the foreground elements taking on a 'cut-out' appearance. In Forest Light, I used a background toned with light pthalo green in gesso. Once this was dry, I placed the big masses of color leaving the focal point (the light source) untouched. The rest was a process of using brushstrokes with several shades of the major colors to create texture. The same colors with a touch of white were used to create the merest suggestion of tree trunks. Personally, I think the tree trunks truly give form to this painting. Without them, it might just be an interesting abstract.

Forest Light, Acrylic on canvas board, 5"x7", $30 (unframed)

Blazing Sunset

The third and last in a series of knife paintings, Blazing Sunset was a challenge because of the complexity of colors I wanted to use. The challenge came from my wish to keep the colors as pure as possible and allow some optical mixing to occur on the paper without letting them get muddy. I also wanted to create some sense of movement that is often typical of fiery sunsets as they get to their peak. Keeping the knife strokes in the sky at a diagonal enhanced the feeling of movement such as might happen in a real sunset.

Blazing Sunset, Acrylic on 300lb watercolor paper, 11"x14", $75 (unframed)

Poppyfield

Poppyfield at High Noon is another knife painting in the same series as Sunrise. The technique here was similar to that I used for Sunrise with one exception. Most of the painting was done in one session but the highlights in the sky and the red of the poppies were added after the first layer had completely dried. Inevitably, once the thickly applied paint had dried the next layer could only be applied to the bumps and ridges of the previous layer. This shows well in the rather random appearance of the highlights in the sky.

Upon stepping back from this painting I liked the effect -- and left it alone. I guess while the artist attempts to control the medium and technique, the medium can sometimes control the art.

Poppyfield at High Noon, Acrylic on 300lb watercolor paper, 11"x14", $75 (unframed)

Humble Inspiration

Some years ago while I was living in Michigan, every day I would drive by a patch of country road that went through swampland that had been created as a result of housing developments all around. Hardwood trees that had died from waterlogging still stood tall and majestic, now home to woodland birds and other creatures.

A mental sketch of those swampy scenes has hung around in memory and was the source for Dead Woodland. There is nothing special about the technique here, although I was able to use my (only) recently refined skill in the use of the liner brush to create the tree branches.

Dead Woodland, Acrylic on canvas board, 16"x20", $100 (unframed)

Repeating themes

Sometimes I find that trying out variations of the same theme in different pieces can break the monotony of doing the same painting over and over again until you get it right. Those of you who visit this blog will know that farmland fascinates me and I have often posted paintings inspired by this theme.

Hayfield is a small piece that was done some time ago, but really just finished recently by adding highlights to the foreground. Pieces like this have taught me that aspects of the same scene can be re-arranged in numerous ways to compose a painting. The discipline that comes from doing such a "series" of paintings has helped me overcome the beginner's notion that I must have novel inspiration for each piece!

Hayfield, Acrylic on canvas board, 5" X 7", $35 (unframed)

Afternoon on the Prairie

This is a rather fast knife painting, an approach perfectly suited to acrylic paint. The colors were mixed directly on the board and moved around only as much as needed to the shapes and light-dark contrasts. Even the colors in the tree (ultramarine blue and cadmium yellow medium) were moved just so as to create the shape. The fact that this minimal working of the paint still produced a mostly green hue reinforces the wisdom about how overworked paint can lead to mud!

As I said in another post, scenes such as this one are commonplace in the midwest and their beauty probably wholly unnoticed by most people. To me the play of atmospheric effects on farmland along with the change of vegetation with seasons is enough to inspire forever.

Afternoon on the Prairie, Acrylic on board, 11"X14", $150 (unframed)