Speaking of Art Blog

Great Marsh Stunner, pastel, 12x12"

This is my latest pastel, of a Fork-tailed Flycatcher that I was fortunate enough to photograph at the Great Marsh within 5 miles of my house in northern Indiana.  The confused bird flew up here from its home in Central or South America and spent 4 days posing for starstruck birdwatchers and photographers in the fall of this year.  Its winged acrobatics of that long tail as it flew and then perched on a branch alongside the marsh water was quite the sight to see.

As I stared at my reference photo, I struggled with the look of the background.  It was just so boring.  Then something in my brain’s ever-growing memory filing cabinet reminded me to pull out a framed print, a gift to me, that I received over 30 years ago.  The print was purchased by my husband while he was on a business trip in Japan.  I have always treasured it.  The similarities between the print and the reference photo were obvious – same closeup view of a bird in front of a blurred background, same simple composition.  It handed me an idea to refashion the background, using stripes in shades of blue instead of red-brown. 

Now I was suddenly motivated to start the painting.  I had stared at the print countless times over the decades, but I never really looked closely at those background stripes.  How many are there?  3? 4?  No wait, there are actually 5.  The top one is the darkest, then the second one is the most saturated with color.  The third and fourth utilize the same colors, but with one color emphasized in the third stripe and the other color featured in the fourth stripe.  Finally, the fifth stripe is the lightest one.  I also noticed how the top and bottom stripes’ widths are approximately the same, while the three middle stripes are not as wide but still varied somewhat from each other.  Lastly, I took note of how each stripe meshes/blends with the next one.  So, I chose to use a sheet of blue LaCarte paper for this painting.  LaCarte is a blending dream surface.  I find it to be effortless to smush one color into another, making transitions seamless.

So, did I succeed in making the background more interesting, but not too distracting from the unusual bird?  I vote yes.  And I now have a greater appreciation for the beautiful artistry in the Japanese print I own.  As I put the finishing touches on my painting, I pondered how we truly are a conglomeration of all of our many life experiences and memories of them.  One of those experiences for me happened to be when I was gifted with a small print of a Japanese painting many years ago.  It held the simple answer to my boring background dilemma over 30 years later.

“I am pieces of all the places I have been, and the people I have loved. I’ve been stitched together by song lyrics, book quotes, adventure, late night conversations, moonlight, and the smell of coffee.” ― Brooke Hampton