"Movement and Color"

($40.00.....6" x 6"....Water Soluble Oils on Gessobord)

"Movement and color describe God's creation." It doesn't take very many observations of the landscape to notice the hugh variety of movement and color. Visually, movement doesn't not necessarily mean actual movement, but the erratic placement of line and color of the images found in nature.

There's no better environment in which to learn these two important design elements. This piece is actually a depiction of weeds and brush along the side of the road in New Mexico...near Santa Fe. The intense colors were surrounded by numerous variations of green and especially the "sage" green which dominates the landscape in that area.

It was an easy image to abstract which I did by simply applying energetic strokes where the color notes appeared amd giving no thought to detail. So if you have a hugh stock of photos from trips, you might want to take another look at them and simply mix the colors you see and apply them to your canvas or panel in a very energetic fashion with a palette knife.  It will be made much more interesting by slightly changing the color with each swipe of the palette knife.

In order to step into the world of abstraction, it is absolutely necessary to ignore detail and simply placement the colors and their shapes in the right places. Squint if you need to, in order to keep yourself from getting too tight. And the other approach in arriving at just the right mix of realism and abstraction, is to time yourself and allow very short segments of time (one hour or under for a small painting) and then take longer than you need for the next one. I am finding great satisfaction in doing this and it does help so much to go back and forth with your time and the amount of detail you choose to include. 

The palette knife will help you stay loose because it is not possible to put in as much detail as you could if painting with a brush. So you're in for an adventure if you choose to include the palette knife to create some "jazz paintings" this coming year. Give it a try...you might find yourself obsessing and being a part of the "year of the knives"! And there you have it...just a few more things to think about. 

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.