Summer RhythmsWhew! With the new job of Assistant Principal, my quantity of free time over the summer plummeted. Thanks to all of you who have kept on, occaisionally asking where I am...
The above painting is the third one I've done in 2009. And since I've decided to keep the focus of my blog on my art, well, that's why posts are a little far and few between. The motivation for this work came from the gallery in St. Louis where I show my work, Gallery M. Susan, the nice owner over there decided for a juried show this fall called 'Beauty Is...'. I needed to get her some new work, so I went over to Tower Grove Park in St. Louis where they have gorgeous tropical waterlily ponds, and I took a bunch of pictures. One photo ended up on my laptop as wallpaper. Perhaps that can be a future post. We can put it up as a sort of challenge. What do you think?
This is actually a small part of a much larger picture of white waterlilies. When i went to print off the whole file, it only showed this much. I was just about to delete the print job, when the composition struck me, and I was intrigued by the water, the curves of the pads offset by the straight lines of the stems. One person told me that it was too dark, but I like using my darkest pastels, sometimes.
This was the first painting where I used Mineral Spirits to create an underpainting. I painted the water a very dark green/brown, and the leaves a yellow ochre. If i were to do it again, I think I would choose complementary colors instead. I think some red or orange showing through the leaves would be striking.
Until next time, when I'll let you know how the Gallery Opening does this Friday evening...
Pastel Guy
3 comments:
Nice Matt, lovely painting. Good luck with your gallery opening. I think I will have fewer postings too as I start a new job at the end of October. I am going from three days a week shift work to Monday to Friday 0800 to 1630. This will be a nice change in hours for me but will mean when I get home running around after kids and cooking dinner every night. I will only have the weekends to do any art. This will be very sad. Kay
Good luck with your show!
I like this composition too. In my opinion, the leaves and stems of waterlilies are more beautiful than the flowers, specially the submerged areas of a leaf and even areas that start to turn yellow or have snail bites. It's like seeing beauty deep down.
Kay and Adrianna, Thanks for the kind comments! The opening went well; I think the Summer Rhythms painting sold. It's a case of the wife telling the gallery owner to call her so she can buy it for her husband's Christmas. Take Care!
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