Zoom in Closer, Closer...

Get down in it. What I like about zooming in close on foliage scenes (albeit, landscapes, but not), is the play on play of a multitude of shapes-- dashes of tree trunks, jumbled lines of twigs, slashes of sky, wisps of grasses, dots of wild flowers--coming together like pieces of a puzzle. Colored shapes, all positive, all interlocking to make the whole. Take one away, the scene falls apart. In macro foliage scenes, there's no negative space. Positive and negative are one. Everything is connected and dependent on each other for meaning. Like life.

--As we said in the sixties, "Heavy man." We also said,"Cool." But then both phrases went the way of childhood. Now, I just like to get up close and personal with my world with my camera for paint subjects.


Excellent book on the "New" approach to acrylics: Rethinking Acrylic by Patti Brady. It's about "exploiting the world's most versatile medium." Covers the great number of mediums, but not in a boring way. I particularly liked the sections about pouring and skins, a couple of less contrived techniques. I'm pretty old school with my painting--paint straight on right out of the tube. But these couple of techniques were fascinating and fit in with my approach without buying a lot of product.