Speaking of Art Blog

First Frost, 11x14", pastel

I like rendering different kinds of textures in my paintings and drawings.  Call me crazy, but I find the challenge of creating a texture that is new to me to be fun.  I think my experiences of hiking at the Indiana Dunes earlier this year during my Artist-in-Residency heightened my awareness of the seemingly unlimited number of textures in nature, especially in the fall.  My encounter with the scene that inspired this most recent pastel painting is the perfect example of a complex multi-textured subject.

On November 24 this fall I decided to head over to the Indiana Dunes State Park and hike on the 9-10 loop trail.  The day was cold as the temperature overnight had dropped below freezing, but there was no wind and I felt like hiking in the park's woods.  After I hiked, I dropped in at the nature center to see if there were any birds poking around by the garden area behind the building.  There is a bird viewing room with big windows that face the garden.  It was pretty quiet.  A few goldfinches and sparrows were flitting around, but that was about it.  I did notice some interesting shards of ice floating on the shallow pool that had become filled with half submerged golden orange fallen leaves.  I took note of the interesting juxtaposition of the interacting ice and leaves.  Textures.  

Just as I was ready to exit the bird viewing room, some golden orange movement caught my eye.  Oh my goodness, it was a Carolina Wren, one of my most favorite birds in the area, hopping around on the rocks along the edge of the pool.  I quickly pulled out my camera and started snapping photos.  Now I noticed the juxtaposition of the bird and the hard rocks, two more textures.  I shot maybe 7 or 8 pics, and then the bird fluttered away.  The whole encounter only lasted seconds, but it brought a smile to my face.

At home I downloaded the images to my computer and started cropping and playing with them.  One stood out.  It clearly showed the interaction of not just 2 textures, but all 4 – rocks, feathers, leaves, and ice, oh my!  I immediately got excited to start a painting with a zoomed in look at all 4 elements.  But the big question that loomed large in my mind was - could I pull it off?  I decided I had to try.

It turned out to be a huge task with constant dilemmas and problems to resolve:  How colorful can I make rocks and still have them read as rocks?  I want to simplify the leaf shapes and take out a  of number of stems from the water, but how simple should they be and how much do I leave out?  How dark should I make the water?  What does a skinny strand of ice look like when it’s melting (because my photo wasn’t telling me enough info), and do I add more ice than what I see in the picture?  How much do I darken the white ice so that the wren’s white chest and supercilium stand out even more?  Does my bird look like the center of interest or is it getting lost in all the busyness of the scene?  And on and on and on went my questions to myself as I worked. 

Daunting doesn’t even come close to describing the task.  Petrifying at times and downright crazy making is more like it.  But I was determined to make it all work.  It is super complex, but that’s how multiple textures in a natural scene look to me, beautifully magically complex.  Success!  I do think I need to now shift into a lower gear and try something a bit simpler for my next art project.  Well, that is unless I am wowed by another unexpected scene that sweeps me off my feet with its captivating textures all glommed together.  What can I say?  If that is the case, I’m sure I’ll be hooked once again.  Textures excite my imagination.