Too Much Holiday? Trouble Painting?

Up In The Air; Photography; Patterns; Abstraction



North Shore, Mirror Lake; Landscape; Photography; Patterns; Abstraction

Me too.

I've had trouble painting nearly this whole holiday season, so I gladly participated in Martine Alison's 7photos/7days/7friends Nature Photography challenge. At least I was doing something arty, instead of sitting at my computer playing endless games of Solitaire and  combing through my Mexico photos trying to choose good headshots for drawing sessions.

Though I said, in my last post, I was going to finish  the challenge up with Rain, the reference photo I used for a painting of the same name, I did not.  I found these two and was impressed by how abstract they were and how much I depended upon the abstraction in painting. 

Abstractions seems to be shunned by the masses; realism is king. I never understood why.  All paintings begin with abstract forms. Indeed, painting itself is the creation of  a sense of the  three dimensional on a two dimensional plane, but then, sadly what does the public know about art? Zilch,  Too bad for them.

Looking through my photo files, I realized I see abstract forms first when I look through a camera lens. And when I compose a painting, I put those abstract shapes down first.  From there, I move towards realism..

Sometimes I get there, sometimes I stop short.  Most often for me, the more detailed a painting becomes, the more static it becomes--the more glued down, nailed down and lifeless the subject.    While I do admire super realism, painting that way makes me crazy...

My son told me once, "Mom, you think too much",  Seems I do. Best to leave these thoughts in my last post of 2015.

May you all have a healthy, healthy, happy, happy New Year! Travel safe and may the force be with you.


A FEW ABSTRACT BEGINNINGS I DESIDED WERE THE END

An abstract study of grasses. 



 

Deborah's Pond; Oils; Landscape; Abstraction



 

Birds of Paradise; Watercolor; Abstraction

 

It Stopped Raining

Rain, 36" x 60", oil

Rain, the photograph I used as reference. What I liked about it was the underlying grid that
the heavy rain  made on the windowpane that made the forms melt and the colors run.

Talk about photographing art. What a bitch this one was.  I spent the weekend getting it to the observational state of finish and couldn't get a decent shot, till I brought the picture plane  perpendicular to the floor and bounced my studio lighting. (The weather was too wet. The painting was too wet to go out under open sky no matter the weather).    Now that I know about ColorMunki, I was thinking about it the whole time, but this photo is as good as it gets.  I stand behind it.
I'm pretty satisfied with Rain. But it really cost me some paint!  I kept thinking about epoxy paints, the stuff that comes in gallons, as I kept tossing out empty tubes. 

In a summer downpour, the woods really look spectacular.