Speaking of Art Blog

Prairie Song, pastel, 10x10"

This is my latest pastel painting, of a Field Sparrow perched on some Ironweed in a prairie near my home.  For my surface, I used some handmade paper that has a beautiful deckled edge, making the whole painting look even more organic.

As usual for me, I worked from a reference photo that I took last summer while I hiked at the prairie.  One thing I want to point out in this blog is just how much I sometimes delete from my reference photo before and during my painting process.  This is my original unedited photo that I took.  I didn’t want to get any closer to the bird or it would have flown away.  Back at home, I cropped out most of the photo and chose to make the painting a square.  I like working in a square format.  It’s a little more offbeat and unexpected compared to a rectangle.

Here is the cropped reference photo on my ipad mini that I had on a stand next to my easel while I worked.  Do you see all the differences between my finished painting and my reference photo? 

• First, I really jazzed up the background.  It just seemed too boring in the photo.  The bird is pretty drab colored to begin with, so I wanted to play with color behind the bird to make it look more interesting.  Did I know exactly what I was going to do back there before I started?  Nope.  I did know what colors I wanted to use, but I honestly didn’t have a whole game plan beforehand.  I just made sure to use a variety of shapes, chromas, values, and hues back there within a limited number of color choices.  While I was not interested in achieving symmetry between the left and right or top and bottom, I did remain cognizant of balance.  I also made sure to have a change of background color happen somewhere besides right where a white reed bisected the picture plane.
• Second, I kept on deleting Ironweed buds as I worked on the flower.  I mean, holy cow, look at all those buds on that flower in the reference photo, and most of them look dead, spent.  Mentally I simply cut out the dead ones.  Not necessary.  Also, I wanted to see more of that luscious dark blue-violet background color peeking from behind the flower buds.  So, I only included as few buds as necessary to distinguish it as Ironweed.
• Lastly, I decided to punch the yellow green of the skinny leaves in the scene, and I even changed one white reed to a green leaf on the far right.  Those leaves add a pop of bright color and keep the viewer inside the left and right deckled edges of the painting.

With all the editing I did, I kept in mind that my goal was to tell one story – of a song sparrow perched on a flower in a prairie.  If something didn’t help to drive home that singular theme, I eliminated it.  Less became more.  Mission accomplished.

Wintry Perch, pastel, 12x9"

This is my latest pastel, of a fluffed-out little goldfinch perched on a snow shovel handle during a sub-zero day in December.  I was standing inside our house, shooting pics of the finches at our feeders, and this one decided to stare right at me.  So adorable!

What I noticed immediately after taking my reference photo were the stripes of white behind the bird and shovel handle.  They really help to pull the whole scene together.  But why?  Well, let’s take a closer look at why.

I have created this graphic to simplify things.  I changed my finished painting into a black & white image, and then I circled and outlined some compositional elements.  First let’s examine the implied shape of the two elements in the foreground, the goldfinch and shovel handle.  If you draw around their outer shapes together (because they are connected), an interesting egg shape setting upright is evident.  A closed circle in a painting can sometimes present a compositional problem because there’s seemingly no way into the circle.  But here the bird’s dark tail gives us a way into the oval shape.  So, the purple edged shape, with a tail, is our front layer.

Now let’s look at the middle ground layer, the two stripes of snow and the railing outlined with pink lines.  They really help to connect the foreground elements with the rest of the scene. The snow and railings don’t have very much detail, but their shapes are large and bright enough that they set nicely halfway back in the composition. Also, they divide the background into thirds, a very effective compositional trick.  Dividing the picture plane into an odd number of sections, three, is more preferable than dividing it into an even number of sections, like two or four.  Two and four are symmetrical, more static, while three creates a little more tension, and thus interest in the scene as a whole.

Lastly there’s the background.  I purposely kept the background muted and understated with soft edges on everything.  That serves to push the wintry background brush and branches way back in space.

Think about this for a moment:  What if I had left those snow stripes out altogether?  Then the bird and shovel handle would look like they are floating in front of that fuzzy background, pasted in place.  So, what that middle layer of snow on some wooden railings does is help to create another layer of depth, with additionally helping to create a little bit more interest value by dividing the picture plane into thirds.  Also, the snow helps to complete the story here, of a darling, curious goldfinch on a cold wintry day.  Those are three very strong reasons why those snow stripes are important in this painting.

I love analyzing why my instincts tell me a reference photo will work.  Most times I have to scratch my head and think it through, while my subconscious sees the value in a scene in an instant.  It’s usually whispering to me, “Just trust me and take the picture, Mary Ann, and worry about why it’s a good shot later.”  I have learned over time that my subconscious really does know what it’s doing.  And so, I listen and snap the shutter on my camera.  Shoot pictures now, think it through later, a good plan.

Every new year I like to look back and take stock of my previous year’s artwork.  I find it to be encouraging because I tend to lose track of how much art I actually produce in a year.  Since the year 2000, my art goal has been to produce at least one frame-worthy piece of artwork each month.  Most years I come out ahead of that goal.  For 2022 it was a gangbuster total – 20 framed pieces of artwork in 12 months!

The other thing I like to stop and take note of is what goals I’ve reached for and attained in my art career.  2022 was also a stellar year for me in that regard.  I received Signature Member status from 3 national pastel societies – MidAmerica Pastel Society, Great Lakes Pastel Society, and Chicago Pastel Painters.  Whew!  But the hardest goal that I reached was achieving Master Circle status with the International Association of Pastel Societies.  It took me 10 years to achieve that goal.  I was honored along with over 30 other artists to receive my Master Circle medallion at the IAPS Convention in Albuquerque NM this past June.

The last goal I achieved in 2022 came right at the end of the year.  It was the acceptance of a short how-to article I wrote and submitted to Pastel Journal magazine for inclusion in a future issue of the magazine.  The subject of my article is a surprise and will be published in the Summer 2023 issue.

This final accomplishment is more a writing than an art achievement.  And do you know when I honed my writing skills at a fairly rapid pace?  During the pandemic.  Yes, for me, COVID had a silver lining.  While I was stuck in my home with extra time on my hands, I started to not only churn out more artwork, but I also started writing blog posts and short topical art related presentations that I gave to art societies via Zoom.  And just like with any new creative skill, the more I practiced the better I got at it.  Yes, I still had to work up the courage to submit my creative writing to the magazine, but I felt confident about it because I could tell that my writing had improved quite a bit during the past few years.  Practicing really does help….a lot!

I am grateful and humbled that my artistic career is continuing to expand in new directions all the time.  Is it easy?  No.  Is it fun?  Yes, sometimes.  Can it be frustrating?  Oh yes.  But is it rewarding when I finally achieve a goal?  YESSSSS!  That makes it all worth the hard work.  But getting really good at something takes years of practice.  I can’t remember which famous artist said this, but I learned in a college art course that the artist claimed the first 100 paintings are just for practice.  100!  That’s a lot of practice!  At times over the past 22 years, I’ve wondered if that was too low an estimate.  Maybe 250 is closer to reality.