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Spring 2007

Fall 2007 

This semester I plan to paint at least six paintings.   I plan on concentrating on painting people and creating at least one large-scale floral painting. I enjoy painting subjects that are close to me. Unfortunately, it seems that the closer I am to my subject, the more I struggle.  I want to keep my paintings colorful and work on developing my area of emphasis and at the same time maintaining a fresh feel to my composition. 

Artists that I admire include Jessica Zemsky, Frederick Brown and Georgia O’Keefe. Jessica Zemsky paints in watercolor and gouache.  This is the artist that inspires my portrait paintings.  Her work is expressive and fresh, exactly what I strive to accomplish in my portraits. I have a tendency to overwork my portraits and they end up looking stiff and lack expression.  Although I love painting people, sometimes it is really painful!   What I like about Brown is that he makes painting people look easy!  Brown uses bold colors and patterns to illustrate a colorful rhythm to his work. His paintings on Jazz Musicians are fun and energetic. I am planning to do at least one large scale close up flower painting this fall, based on the style of O’Keefe.

I will post my work on this site and discuss my progress as I go.  I am also planning on researching different artists and styles this fall, and you may very possibly see their influence in my work as well.  I think painting is as much about the journey as the destination.   

I will to continue working in acrylic.  I like to work from photographs so I am going to be busy taking lots of pictures.  My first painting is from a photograph that I took on a family vacation.

 
Art 521 Fall of 2007

 

This is one of my favorite paintings from my work this fall.  I have a hard time with subjects that are close to me, and I struggled with this painting.  I used strong values to keep my area of emphasis on the face and I tried to achieve a fresh feel to this painting by keeping my background loose and spontaneous.  As always, I labored over this painting.  I was not happy with the figure in the background, so I darkened the value of my background figure to push him back and keep him from competing with the figure in the foreground.  I like the movement in the background and the reflections in the fish tank.  I 

 

This painting was a challenge.  I painted large (24x36), and I forced myself  to step out of my comfort zone.  My idea came from an old black and white photograph from childhood. The background and color scheme are inspired by  the artist Kathleen Cavendar and her pastel landscape scene in "Three Redheads". Cavendar's piece is fresh and bright and I loved her lighting.  After looking at her work I decided to keep the light behind the cows and bring my shadows forward, drawing the viewer into the cows.  I like the  bright colors and the basic composition of this painting. 

 

 

This next painting is from a photograph of my niece.  I liked the feel of the image in the photograph, and I envisioned it on a Georgia O'Keefe style desert background.  Well, I have changed my background at least twice,  making it more painterly and complicated.    It is large, 24"x30", (same size as the cows!).  I think after I stepped away from my comfort zone with the cows, I got too ambitious and decided to REALLY go wild with this painting.    I am not sure if I like this painting or not.  I added some stronger shadows in my figure and I utilized strong color throughout the piece.  I did not use any black in this painting or any of my other paintings.  I  feel like black has a tendency to dull my paintings down.  

 

This figure painting is a lot smaller than my other paintings.  This is 12''x16''.  I wanted to work with a blue and orange complimentary color scheme and really focus on light and shadow.  I like the figure and the foreground.  To improve this painting, I may soften my background to pull my interest more into the foreground.  I like how the water ripples around the figure.  This painting became more involved than I had originally planned, but I like the feel of the piece and the strong use of value.

  

This painting is inspired by Georgia O'Keefe.   The canvas is 14"x18".  I enjoyed working on this painting more than any of the other pieces that I did this fall.  My mom says it is very feminine.  I say, just like an "O'Keefe"!  I painted this from a photograph of an iris.  I also like the work of  Stacey Geary and how she uses acrylic to paint her florals.  Geary uses acrylic washes to emphasis color and form.   I used many layers to paint this flower and I topped it off with a layer of acrylic varnish.  This is the one painting that I don't feel like I need to go back and "touch up".

 

 

 

I like the natural setting of this portrait painting.   Of all my paintings, I feel like this is the most spontaneous and the most natural.  This is one of my smaller paintings, 12x16.   I feel like I met my original objectives, however, I did plan to have all my paintings on  large canvas. Towards the end of this unit I have limited the size of my paintings.  I was struggling with getting the details in my larger paintings, and I was feeling over-whelmed.  I am happy with the scope of work that I was able to accomplish this term, and with my efforts to expand my horizon.  I look forward to the faculty critique class and the opportunity to continue to grow and experiment with my paintings again.