Speaking of Art Blog

Storm Over Taos, photograph

Yesterday something unexpected happened to me.  I won a Merit Award at a local all-media art competition in Chesterton IN for a framed photo of mine.  I also entered this pastel titled, Red Dress, but that’s not the one to receive an award.  Sometimes that happens.  I’ll enter two pieces into a show and the one that was sort of an afterthought is the one that gets singled out for an award.  I was surprised and also honored.

Red Dress, pastel

During the opening reception I was chatting with a few artist friends.  One of them commented that they thought the photo was stunning.  Then the question arose, “Have you considered painting that scene?”  My reply went something like this:

“No, I don’t think I’ll paint that particular scene.  It says everything I’d already want it to say.  My camera captured the whole look and feel of that moment.  My husband and I were on vacation in New Mexico and we were driving out of Taos as a storm was brewing in the distance.  We watched it form over the vast flat expanse outside of town.  Suddenly we both knew that we had to stop the car to witness Mother Nature’s gorgeous forces in action.  We sat silently entranced by the scene.  I shot several photos.  Then the clouds just as suddenly dissipated and the storm fell apart.  The drama was gone in a matter of seconds.  When I looked at my pics later that day, I knew in my bones that this one shot completely captured the incredible power in the sky that we had witnessed.  There was no way I could have improved upon that image with my pastels.  Sometimes the photo already says it all.  So, I enlarged it and put it in a frame.”

Lately I’ve been again hearing rumblings from artists with a looser style who are grousing on social media about how photorealistic artists should just, “Enlarge the photo and frame that.  Why bother copying the photo exactly?”  Well, here’s my response: We’re not.  Just because we choose to make a painting look like a photo, that doesn’t mean it looks exactly like any one particular photo.  It’s simply our chosen style.

Here’s an example of what I mean.  Last fall I was hiking through a prairie near our home.  The sun was shining on all the swishing/whispering grasses, there were lots of butterflies fluttering about, and the thistle flowers were huge and full.  I was taking pics left and right, gathering possible reference photos for future paintings.  While viewing the pics at home, I noticed one photo that had great potential.  But while it hinted at some of the elements that I was attracted to during my walk, it didn’t quite hit the mark.  I tried cropping the photo to see if that would help, but it still wasn’t there.  Then I knew it would make a good reference for a painting.  Why?  Because it wasn’t frame ready, but I knew what I had to do to reach my goal.

During my painting process I punched all the background colors, I heightened the sense of light filtering through the grasses at the top, I shortened the horizontal width gap between the left-hand grasses and the butterfly, and I gave the thistle flower some more color.  It was too chalky looking.  Ah, now my painting reflected what I saw and felt that day.  Is it photorealistic?  Yes, but it doesn’t match my reference photo exactly.  It matches what I experienced that day.  My reference photo was just a memory jogger, a starting point, same as how an artist with a looser style might use a reference photo.

The moral of my story is this: If my reference photo hits the mark, I don’t try to paint it.  I simply enlarge it, frame it, and sometimes even enter art competitions with it and win an award.  It already says it all.  But when a photo doesn’t quite hit the mark, that’s when I head for my easel to embellish the tale.  That’s when my creative juices start flowing and I’m off and running to try to recreate a special moment in time.  My photorealistic style is a whole separate matter.  In fact, I consider it a compliment when someone asks me, “Is that a photo or a painting, Mary Ann?  I can’t tell.”  That question is music to my ears.  And if someone thinks they’re looking at a photo of mine, well, maybe they are.  They’d better check the label on the wall and see if it says PHOTOGRAPHY or PASTEL.  It might be either one.