"Yellow Rose"

($50.00.....6" x 6".....Water Soluble Oils on Gessobord)

"Yellow roses express Texas love." There are several reasons why I love yellow roses. I am a native Texan; I carried them at my wedding; and they're beautiful!

Unless you are painting a still life with the flowers lying on their side or in a vase, the other option is to allow them to take up most of the design space. All of this got me to thinking once again about positive and negative space. If the image takes up most of the space, the result is a very dramatic painting. If, on the other hand, the negative takes up most of the space, the result is a quieter and much less dramatic piece. My natural inclination is to allow the image to take up most of the space because I like drama (the good kind!)

Of course, cropping the image so that parts of it are completely running out of the design boundary will also create drama. These are very important considerations when choosing how to compose your piece. My motive in painting this piece took into account that roses are much easier to paint with a palette knife if they're large. I simply didn't feel like putting myself through the kind of agony early in the morning that required painting several of them in a vase.  

You can also experiment with your camera to see check out positive and negative space arrangements without having to actually paint each one. Either way, it's a good thing to think about these things and try all of the options. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"The Triumphant Processional"

($60.00......6" x 6"....mounted on a 1.50" depth clayboard)


"Easter is the triumphant processional celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ." All of the color in the flowers, the eggs, the dresses, the hats point to a celebration of the greatest gift ever given to mankind.

This piece is a photo montage of greenery with one lily adhered to a support with erratic pencil lines and writing. After this thoroughly dried, the pouring medium was added with most of it applied in a thin, watercolor technique with some thick medium and marbling at the bottom. It was very important to leave a lot of space with very little detail since there is much going on in the image. It gives the eye a rest and the viewer will not be so quick to turn away. Visual overload and bad design are the number one reasons why an artist cannot keep the viewer engaged.

Even though the lettering may be a bit difficult to read on a computer screen, it is quite clear in the original. I chose not to use pure white for the lettering, but added just a tiny, tiny bit of Cerulean Blue Gouache to tone it down a bit. The robin's egg blue color at the top is achieved by graying down turquoise and adding a bit of that to a ton of white. It really is quite lovely with the Golden Green Gold color mingling together with it in the pouring medium.

This is a good time to also talk once again about positive and negative space. If the two are close to being equal, with the positive taking up a bit more than the negative, there is a bit of drama and it is pleasing to view. If there is not a lot of detail in the positive space, you can create a lot of drama by having the positive image taking up at least two thirds of the design space. Just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"Melody" (sold)

(sold)

Music has always been a great "lifter" of the human spirit. To think on things that are good and lovely produces another lift to our spirits. Put the two together in a comparative thought for a great motivator of the soul.

In yesterday's blog I went on and on about positive and negative space. Today you can see a shift to the negative space being dominate. (Yesterday they were almost equal.) To add a different kind of drama...I included two moving lines of "offhand flourishing" which activates the space. If I had not done that, there would have been a dominance of straight lines and a chance of too much harmony and not enough contrast.

"Quiet Love" (unavailable)

    (unavailable))  

Words are not always necessary to show a deeply felt love for someone...but it permeates the air in quietness. A touch or a loving glance across the room says it all.

One of the design decisions that keeps coming up with each of these 6 x 6's involves the corners. I've come to the conclusion that the square format seems to compel the artist to design the corners more. However, just when I thought most of the drawings would be more dramatic at the edge and closer to a corner, I realized that the bromeliad is almost dead center (huge no-no in most cases). It works because of the placement of the stamped imagery. (go figure!) There is still almost half of the design space in white. This leads to another point....when the positive and negative space are almost equal, there is more drama. If you allow more negative space (no imagery) to dominate, the piece will be less dramatic. Just something to think about.