Speaking of Art Blog

I am attracted to a wide variety of subjects to paint or draw, from beautiful sunsets to fall leaves and even to a cute little bird on our deck.  I have taken thousands of photos, but only some of them float up to the top and get chosen by me to render as artwork.  So what is it that finally makes me say, “Oh yes, I want to paint this one next”?  Well, it’s actually not the subject matter at that point.  It’s usually something more technical artistically.

Sometimes I want to create a mood.

             Mauve Afterglow, pastel

 Other times I want to render a high key scene (mostly light with only one key spot that has some darks).

  Shoreline Rhythms, pastel

Or maybe it’s a low key scene (mostly dark with a few key light shapes).

     Beach Day Finale, pastel

Many times it’s light/dark drama I’m after.

       The Nut Finder, pastel

Other times it’s the fun of rendering bright bold color.

             Fall Fiesta, pastel

But since my latest photo I chose was none of the above, I was honestly stuck as to why I was drawn to it.  What was my goal, just to render all those bokeh circles of light in the background?  As I started the piece I thought maybe that was it.  Maybe I just wanted to see if I could pull it off.  But as I worked on it I had a nagging thought that the bokeh circles weren’t the whole story.  What makes this scene so enticing to me?  Why do I like it so much?  Is it the cute little bluebird?  Or is there something more at a subconscious level that is at work drawing me in?

Springtime Visitor, pastel

Then as I added the wood grain underneath the bluebird everything snapped into place.  I stepped back and studied the piece and for a few moments I thought of only the abstract shapes rather than seeing a bird, some railing, and some bokeh circles of light.  To help me with concentrating on only the shapes, I used Adobe Photoshop to remove all the color from an image of my artwork when it was almost finished.  And that’s when it finally became apparent why I find this piece compelling.  Suddenly I saw that there are all circles in the background, lines in the foreground, and the one shape that combines both of those elements is the bird.  It has both lines and a circle.  Plus, I realized that it combines line and circle in two very dramatic places:  its beak is composed of lines surrounded by a circle, and its eye is a circle surrounded by lines (the edges of its breast and back).  The bird literally pulls the two key elements of line and circle together into one interactive shape.  Amazing!

And here I thought it was just a cute pic of a bluebird backlit by circles of light.  Well actually, it is a cute pic of a bluebird backlit by circles of light.  But with being able to identify the elements that made it so intriguing for me in the first place, now I knew what to tweak and emphasize in order to bring my artwork to completion.  I took the time to reinforce even the tiniest little cracks in the wood grain of the railing (line), and I also punched the lights of some of the circles in the background.  I darkened that bird’s eye with some deep navy blue, and I carefully reinforced the edges of its back and breast to make those lines stand out just a little more.  Perfect!

So what attracted me to this scene in the first place?  It wasn’t the mood or the color or even the cute little bluebird.  No, it was the placement of circles and lines.  Fascinating.  Sometimes when you are telling a story it pays to go back and revisit the beginning so that the ending makes more sense and the final chapter can be finished with a flair.  And a cute little bluebird thrown in for good measure certainly doesn’t hurt.

Heartland, pastel

This is my latest pastel painting.  It is definitely uncomplicated – a red barn looking corn crib, a single tree, some puffy clouds, and some corn stubble.  Plus it’s on the small side (8x10") for the size in which I usually work.  Yet I received tons of positive comments and an almost immediate upbeat reaction to it on Facebook after I posted an image of the finished painting.  Yes, it’s such a classic farm scene that it evokes lots of fond memories in us Midwesterners.  That probably had a lot to do with the thumbs up reaction it evoked.  But I want to also suggest that there are some elements in the artwork design itself that helped my cause along.

One of those elements would be the puffy clouds.  My original reference photo that I took of the corn crib, tree, and field did not have ANY clouds in it, not one.  It was boring as ever.  So I took another photo a whole year later of some beautiful clouds floating by in approximately the same location.  Then using Adobe Photoshop I dropped them in place behind my star players.  Suddenly the scene came to life.  It made me smile.  Puffy clouds do that to people.  They make us happy.  I highly recommend adding a cup or two of them to an otherwise boring landscape scene.  But it’s best to use the real deal as a reference because making up puffy clouds in one’s mind is way harder than you think.

Second, I included a pinch of mystery.  Where?  In that sliver of open back door on the corn crib where you can see right through the building to the row of distant trees and sky.  Would it have been even better if I had taken a pic that showed way more background through the open doors?  I would contend not.  By only providing a sliver of background landscape instead of as much as I could, I am reeling my viewer in to come closer and study the painting for a while longer.  Here’s another pastel painting I did where I applied that principle.  The whole center of the tulip is not showing, just a taste.  But it’s just enough to get my point across and infuse the whole painting with a small sense of intrigue, mystery.

Tulip, pastel  

What transpires when a viewer encounters that little bit of mystery is that they themselves fill in the missing part.  And when that happens, now the viewer is engaged with the artwork, in contrast to just being an observer.  In the farm scene perhaps the viewer might suddenly remember a time when they were in such a structure themselves, peering outdoors and enjoying the view.  There’s just enough darkness showing on the inside of the building to allow for that memory.  If I had rendered a front and center view with a much bigger hole in the middle, there wouldn’t be much darkness left along the sides for very much of a memory.  Not revealing everything leaves more room for an interactive story to develop between the viewer and the artwork because a chunk of the story resides in the parts that are NOT all spelled out.

So that’s why I included what I did, a cup of happiness and a pinch of mystery.  I think it’s a winning combination.  Plus I love red barns and puffy clouds, so why not include both in one painting?