Irises

Stats: 10x8x.75" oil on canvas
Playlist: Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland
Beverage: Dark and stormy

It's funny. I had this open studio, and then I kept my own art up for my parents to see when they visited two weekends later, and a lot of people had the same comment. My floral still lifes are abstract. They're technically not - they're just painted quickly with liberal interpretation of shape. I like getting into the zone and painting what I see, but sometimes I'm not looking at the same image I started off with. I shift to the left or right. For example, in the tulips I painted in +/- I completely forgot to paint a blossom that would have been located in the upper left corner.

Those who know me will understand this as a common theme in my personal life. Oh yeah, the most basic life thing - usually washing the dishes - totally slipped my mind. I focus so much on other things I am passionate about that I sometimes miss the basic step of "which bag did I put my sunglasses in." (Three weeks later I remembered.) I blame it on the right-brainedness. In my defense, when I'm on top of a subject, I'm really, truly on top of it. That subject just does not happen to be location of sunglasses.

Painting is an outlet, after all, and when I tried to make it something else I got so frustrated that I stopped for three years. I know my limitations and I know my strengths. I try to play to my strengths by painting quickly, with energy, so that I feel as though I am expressing my soul in creativity. One of my favorite songs to listen to while painting is a French song by Mylene Farmer called "Dessines-moi un mouton" (Draw me a sheep). In the chorus it says "le monde est vide sans imagination" (the world is empty without imagination), and I feel like I am being true to my contribution to the world when I paint.

All that said, as I've grown in my appreciation for using art as a personal creative outlet, and listening to my inner creativity, I have found space to expand and develop my own technique. But let me tell you - that did not happen in a college course. It was only when I returned to the love of expressing creativity that I could apply formulas.

So, as an artist who knows her academic theory, I posit to you that no, these floral still lifes such as "Lillies" are not in fact abstract. They are rather an expression of my inner creativity - at its peak since I was painting for my mother and I tend to express personal feelings about "clients" in paintings. A true expression of how I view the flowers in actuality. I will partially cede to you and call them "abstracted." But for me these frenetic flowers are real.

What Color is Light?

Snow Shadows



Stats: 12x12x1.5" oil on canvas
Beverage: Coastal Estates Cabernet Sauvignon
Playlist: Olympic Men's Figure Skating Free Skate

Yesterday my friend took me to see the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit entitled "Abstractions" at the Phillips. I had seen an exhibit of hers before at the Calatrava in Milwaukee, but that one was more comprehensive and PC. While it did show her landscapes from Lake George, NY and Santa Fe, NM, it rather glossed over her relationship with famous photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

The Phillips did not disappoint. While this exhibit focused nearly entirely on her prolific abstract art, it also displayed some of the art photos Stieglitz took of her. These mostly naked photos contributed to her reputation as expressing abject sexuality in her abstract paintings, when in fact they are meant to represent the emotional interpretations of what O'Keeffe saw in the natural world around her. Much like the eye gathers and refracts light, sends it upside down into our brain, and somehow our brain re-interprets the information right side up, O'Keeffe's abstract art takes what she sees refracted on her soul, and re-displays it as what she feels when she sees things.

I like this interpretation of abstract art because I often see things, or imagine I would like to see things, in a more colorful, vibrant way than they exist to most people. That is why I will always tell you that the Schultz's house is blue. It really is.

That is also why when I explored around in the snow after our blizzards last week I did not expect the photographs I took of the play of vibrant light and deep blue snow shadows to do justice to what I saw. Did you know that all white light that we see is white because it is a combination of every single color that exists? Did you know that all black is the opposite - the utter lack of light and color?

My friend and I both left the O'Keeffe exhibit with our hands over our eyes, as though viewing any other art would tarnish the feeling we had, as though we had just drank a refreshing glass of water on a hot day. I went home, turned on the Olympics, and interpreted my own colors of the snow, per the composition of a photo I had taken, onto canvas. Voila!

Blizzication

There are at least 23 inches of snow outside of my apartment and it's still coming. It will be a productive weekend - probably a very long weekend - so stay tuned for more frequent posts as I paint away between snowshoeing trips!

I've recently finished another abstract commission called Hogue. It is a 36x24 inch vertical oil on canvas designed for someone's bedroom, and I came up with the design while laying awake in bed. I wanted it to be something calm but inspiring, like a good dream. In some ways the pastel colors are comforting, but in other ways the insistent use of complementary colors is energy-inducing. I first designed the purple background to be light blue, with purple shadows to give dimension to the orange spheres. However, my client said that she preferred a purple background and I'm glad she does. I think a light blue background would have been too overwhelming a contrast to the orange spheres.

When I first painted the purple background I painted it much darker, and had to go back over it with a lighter layer. It gives depth to the end result, but took a lot of paint!

Some lessons learned:

1.) Be careful of the color saturation that you mix at night, without the benefit of natural lighting. I tend to mix too dark, as I did with the initial dark purple background layer.

2.) Pay attention to your materials. If you need to "mix in" green and yellow highlights remember that paint dries and you can't do it next week. Do it right away.

3.) Symmetry. Liberally ground the colors by using warms and cools, and complementary colors, in a geometrically consistent way so that the color creates the composition and ground the painting. You can see in the details how I mixed in yellows and blues - the colors in the orange section - strategically in certain places to balance the background geometrically with the foreground. Vice versa, I also liberally added purple into an orange corner to ground the composition.







Painting: Hogue
Playlist: French Music and the Grammy's
Beverage: Hogue Riesling (very, very sweet)

Canvas Talks

You may be wondering what in the world that splash of color is on the title of this webpage. That is my first serious venture into the world of abstract art. A friend commissioned me for this piece, and her only instructions were: 24x48 inch oil on canvas with bright colors, primarily red and yellow, that doesn't resemble anything. Voila!

Were it not for a chance encounter with Sam Gilliam on the first sunny spring day of 2009 I would not have known where to start. But after visiting his friend's studio and watching them work on a Smithsonian commission I felt prepared. He taught me that abstract is an extension of the painting and drawing basics, not a simplified version of them. He also taught me that color and composition are king. With that in mind, I paid very strict attention to planning every color mixture and knife-stroke in advance, and followed my plan exactly. This was a large departure from my typical painting method: 2 hours, palette knife, good playlist, glass of wine, done.

Knowing that I wanted a yellow background, I started with a purple wash so that the yellow would pop. I mixed it with earth tones and highlighted it with transparent gold. Instead of going straight for red I added a layer of its complementary color, dark green. Then came the red. I made sure to mix it into the green layer a bit to avoid crayola syndrome. The background to the bright colors is dark purple again, then in the final layer I stopped adding earth tones. Instead, when mixing the highlights, I began using white to pop it. I finished the center colors before the yellow/orange hue that appears almost like an aura around them. That hue was part of my plan but I had been nervous to put it in before adding the colors. The painting was missing something, though. I took a deep breath and thought "well, if it doesn't work, I'll paint over it."

The end result: Depth, thanks to alternating warm and cool colors, and mixing in earth tones. Composition, thanks to an off-center vertical spike. Light, thanks not to dabbing white here and there, but using warmer, yellow, reflective light and shadow. Lesson learned: Follow the plan, breathe, and listen to the canvas.

Does it look like anything? That's up to you to decide.

Drink: Dark and Stormy
Playlist: Naomi's - from DC: The Movie production