Compose: Pulling it all together

There's so much to attend to as you paint ! The wise artist is planning from the beginning and referencing that plan as the project develops. I am not always wise and often work myself into corners that require quite a bit of digging to get out of. My strength usually lies in subject selection and making the painting say what I want. Even that is a problem with Daylilies; I seem to have fallen down with every aspect. This is my last Compose post for awhile and I will try to pull the painting together.

There is good, overall movement in the classic s shape of the composition. The large open flower as the centre of interest in believable, but it could be advanced more in the picture plane (probably by making the flower below/behind it recede.

I think most of the problems lie in the upper right section. I need to sink the flower in this section back beyond the open lily. The stem is much too pronounced and needs to recede too. I've drawn even more attention to this problem by having the leaves form an x. What was I thinking? Obviously I wasn't! I need to tidy up this whole corner. The other area that is unfinished is the lower left where the red blob is located. It's not formed.

Now for the grayscale which effectively pinpoints any difficulties with values. My usual problem is evident - not enough darks, too many midtones. I am just not a dramatic painter. I plan to darken the lower left corner more. The leaf tip in the upper left is also too bright. Creating a 4 value scale of this painting in the beginning would have saved me a lot of problems!

Onward to the most difficult aspect - my conflict about what I am trying to say. As I pointed out in the second post in this series, this is an issue and probably accounts for why I'm struggling with the painting.

From my second post:
What part of the subject should be emphasized to maximize the emotion /impression?
The colour, elegance, structure and their freedom are easy to emphasize. I am not capturing the transience that is so important to my perception of them. Perhaps I need to refocus and paint one or two obviously withered ones, but I also need to somehow portray the melancholy I feel about these flowers. That is very subtle and right now I'm at a loss about how to show it. I'll keep going with the questions/suggestions ...

My answer to me:
You can't say everything in one painting. Focus on the colour, elegance, structure and freedom of the flowers. Transience is well represented in other works in the series.

I hope to have 18 paintings in this exhibition and each one represents at least one aspect of my reading of this particular garden. It's time I created a carefree, happy atmosphere. I am too attracted to melancholy !

Now off to the studio to start making corrections. I may find more are necessary once I dig in. I'll post the final painting with the corrections later.

Compose : Expression

Expression wasn't a planned topic for my compose series but a post on Kathy's blog created a spark that I wanted to respond to. I think it's important to remember that our knowledge of composition and design is acquired for one reason - to create strong work, work that communicates. Having a large menu of options to choose from provides an opportunity to select just what might be needed to invite your viewer to consider what you have created and why. Work by artists who slavishly follow every rules to perfection can be quite exquisite and perfectly rendered but lacking in soul . I think when we first begin in art there is so much to learn and our heads are consumed by this learning. It's a huge juggling act.

I can remember my excitement at creating my first work that was a perfect(in my eyes) rendering of a landscape in a Walter Foster book. I was 20 and interested in art. I lived in a small community. I had no formal training and owned only two art books, one of them a book on composition and the other on landscape. That was my beginning in art. I didn't paint again until I was almost 50. I had a lot to learn and designed a course of study that I pursued and am still pursuing. I feel like I have consumed art book, talked about art, created art and skyrocketed in 10 years to where I am at this point in my career. I can mark my progress by looking back through my work.

In the early stages of my new career, I was warmly welcomed by a group of artists interested in botanical work. These sessions held at Memorial University Botanical Gardens taught me how to really look at something and represent all of its parts. I appreciated belonging to a group of painters who were interested in the subject matter I was interested in and I learned a lot by watching them work and listening to their conversation. My realization that I would never be a botanical artist came quickly. I kept interpreting and exaggerating. I put too much of myself into the work. Flowers always had their own vocabulary for me and I wanted to use it to create paintings that communicated my feelings.

Tenacity(2003) 11 x 14 in, acrylic on canvas

This work represents that moment when I knew I needed to move on and find my own voice as an artist. Can you identify when you found your artistic voice?

Compose: The quadrant test

Do you have any techniques you use to determine if you have an interesting composition? One that I learned early in my practice was the quadrant test. I've long forgotten where I first read about it, but I came upon it again the other day in a wonderful book called A painter's guide to design and composition: 26 masters reveal their secrets by Margot Schulzke. This book is well organized and illustrates many of the points discussed using paintings through their stages of development.

Years ago I created a quadrant "mat" out of a large sheet of clear plastic that I cut from a heavy weight plastic bag art stores often use when you purchase sheets of paper. I used a permanent black marker and a ruler to divide the plastic into quadrants . I can place the mat over many different size paintings by laying it on top of the painting. Because my work is often intimate in scale I created a smaller one to. When you overlay it the quadrants are visible underneath. The idea is to look at each quadrants to see if there is visual interest in each areas (no dead spots).

A story told (2007) 6 x 6 in. mixed media on board

It works well with most paintings. Even when there are areas where there is open space you usually have some interesting bits of visual energy going on to help your eye move through the piece.

10 x 30( 2004) acrylic on canvas

Then of course you always get the exceptions. The work above titled Breathe is all about the open space to the left. I am a yoga enthusiast and one day while looking a this particular amaryllis it gave me the same feeling I get when I fill my lungs with air and slowly exhale. Yoga gives me energy and peace at the same time. I think in this situation the empty space supports the composition. If I had used a less vibrant background it might not have.

Compose" Shape Critique

Critique time
Where do I begin with my discussion about the Summer Fire painting? It seems I've gained a lot of knowledge since 2004! I find it very difficult to talk about shape without including value somewhere in the discussion, therefore I won't try to isolate them. My photo reference for this work is long gone and I can't squint at it or the real scene. I'm left with the image I created.

• My first big mistake was not having the distant island, sky and water as one large shape rather than three smaller shapes. That would mean painting the island in the same value as the sky and water and setting it back in the distance as it was in real life.
• The tree line with its jagged points provides a nice relief from the straight lines of water and island. They also serve to interlock with the shape above it (always a good thing). In terms of value they are possibly too dark because they advance rather than recede. I would lighten them to set them back. In his response to the previous post Don mentioned the tips of the trees on the right being too close to the horizon line (that kissing rule) and that the eye is driven to the tips by the movement of the paint below. It's a very valid point and one I agree with. A bit of change in shape is in order.
  
• The next large mass (shape) is the line of fireweed and the clump of grass to the left of it. The soft diagonal works well and creates a gentle sway of energy. I would work with the values in this shape and include the grass beneath it using the same value which would be a bit darker than at present. Kathy suggested that I vary the shape of the flowers more as the edges are all "active" and therefore dominant. I agree with this point.
• The lower right shape is much darker in value and works to balance the strong diagonals above it. I had a simple solution for keeping the viewer in the picture plane. - I darkened the left side and the foreground right side. A bit too obvious ! In my own defense I did have three areas of dark to move the eye around.
• I feel there's variety in the shapes : simple and complex, small, medium and large, lights and darks. A big drawback is the lack of passive areas. If the sky, island and water are painted as one shape with lighter values this will become a more passive area and a foil for the more active fireweed.
  

The greyscale tells the tale of my penchant to paint in a tight value spread. Even my darks are not that dark. I have painted like this since the beginning. I am able to see the most minute change is value and when I think I am being very adventurous, I'm really not. To this day I have to fight with myself to include both ends of the value scale.

The response to my last post provided a number of suggestions for checking the shapes and values in a painting. I'd like to include them all in this post so they don't get missed.

Look at a greyscale of the painting
Kathy at Katherine A. Cartwright Studio suggested converting my painting to a greyscale in Photoshop. My proficiency in Photoshop is almost nonexistent, but having a reason is a great motivator. It was as easy as Image, Mode, Greyscale. I was just patting myself on the back about my new found skill when Don sent a comment to explain how to do it. hwfarber also suggested previewing the grayscale picture in print preview using different sizes. If you don't have Photoshop or a similar program, you can scan a coloured photo of your painting as a grayscale and print it.

Reduce an image to black and white
One of the things Ann Buckner does after taking a photo and converting it to b&w is to put the contrast all the way up. This reduces it to black and white and gives a good idea of light/dark ratio, rather like a Notan. She learned this from Rhonda Carpenter.

Look at the work in a darkened room
Kathy also suggested a technique learned from Susan Webb Tregay. Take the painting into a very dimly lit room or closet with the door slightly ajar. That way, there isn't enough light to see the colors, but there is just enough light to see the values.

Look through your camera viewfinder
hwfarber suggested setting your digital camera on black and white and looking at your painting through the viewfinder( a techniques learned from a Caroline Jasper workshop).

Look at your work in a mirror
Don Michael Jr. suggested one way to get a different perspective of your shape structure and the overall quality of your composition is to look at it in a mirror. If you go into the room with the light off, get the painting situated, and then turn on the lights you get an instant "snapshot" in reverse which tells you volumes.

Use a reducing lens
"Another good tool is the reducing lens, which Renaissance artists used and is still sold today" recommended Kathy.

Use a red tinted value finder
I made mine from plain red glass from my husband's stained glass selection. You can also buy ready made ones here. The first time I was introduced to this I thought it was magic. You see everything in shades of red which makes it easier to spot the value relationships and massing of shapes. These work best for work when cool colours are predominant.

Compose: The answer is shape

"A painting built on a boring design is like a house built on sand, destined to fall apart." Dan McCaw.

There is no doubt that artists who understand and utilize their knowledge of shape create the most effective designs. When you look at a subject you want to paint you have to look past the details and see what lies before you in terms of shapes not objects. Squinting is your best option for decreasing the amount of detail perceived and reducing the subject to dark and light masses. Another approach is to step back far enough to see only the contours of what you are focused on.

The big shapes that you reduce your subject to are the backbone of a strong painting. Train your eye to see no more than 3 or 4 big shapes in the subject and hang on to these through the whole painting, especially when you start adding detail. Aim for variety in the shapes: large, medium and small, simple and complex, positive and negative, light and dark, active and passive.

Suppose your subject isn't co-operative and there are many discrete shapes, uninteresting shapes or irritating shapes. This is where you get to practice "artistic license". Tom Lynch in Watercolour Secrets: A master painter reveals his dynamic strategies for success suggests changing "bad" shapes by:

1) altering the shape slightly; this is an easy one and artists do it all the time

2) connecting one shape to another; this can be achieved by moving objects closer to each other or connecting them into one shape by using cast shadows; if you have several elements of almost similar value you can unify them into one larger shape later by softening the edges or painting them in similar values.

3) adding something to camouflage the shape or cutting it out; adding in new information to make an original shape more interesting or to bulk it up to increase the size is easy to do, but even easier and often more essential is cutting information. Simplify and eliminate clutter is my mantra.

4) abstracting or stylizing it. This is not one I've used much myself, but there are times when you can solve a problem by abstracting most of the formal information and letting the shape prevail.

Dan McCaw in A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art recommends making quick thumbnails of the initial organization of shapes using white paper and a pencil for the dark/shadowed areas. Two values are all you need if you have a good structure of shapes. Keep changing different aspects of the shapes until you have a pleasing design . When you finally settle on your shapes it is then a good idea to develop at least a four value study- white, 2 mid values and dark. Assign one of the four values to each large mass of your painting. Value and shape are your most important tools to hold a painting together.

From personal experience it is no good to have a shape value sketch and not use it! It's meant to be a useful tool not an academic exercise. I know many artists who create beautifully rendered value sketches for their finished paintings. Every last detail is worked out. I can't go there. I did try, but I lost interest in the subject as a result. If I figure out the minimum with shapes and values (4) I can add the rest as I go along.


An additional element to using shapes to strengthen your design is the importance of interlocking shapes like puzzle pieces which is addressed in detail in How to see underlying shapes in a painting by Deborah Christensen Secor at Wet Cavas. This is a very comprehensive overview of all aspects of shape with excellent illustrations.


In my next post I will return to my previous landscape and consider the information from this post with what my readers have supplied to see how Summer Fire might be improved. Until then here is a grayscale of the painting. It tells quite a bit about the "bones" of the painting.

Compose: Critique to learn

There was a time when I created credible landscapes using good instincts and not a lot of knowledge. This work called "Summer Fire" created early in my career , was based on a view from my art teacher's house window. I love fireweed in summer because it creates such a blast of colour in the environment. I wanted to capture this energy in the painting.

Using your understanding of shapes and how they are used in composing, critique this composition. The next post will summarize what I have learned since I created this work and I will suggest how I think it could be improved.

Compose: An example of content

I know when I've been upstaged! My readers' comments have captured the audience and I'm bringing up at the rear. So I'm riding on their coat tails in this post. They all have great blogs that I visit regularly and interesting takes on many topics. Layers (Donna Watson) brought up another example of two art terms - abstract and non-objective art - that often get used interchangeably. Perhaps someone would like to take this on for a post because I'm certainly hazy on the difference.

Kelly Marszycki concluded that reading a painting depends on the viewer, their background, life experiences, etc. Beauty comma, had the same take. Kelly saw another version of the Garden of Eden and questioned who or what is locked behind the gate- the viewer or the natural world and why is this the case. Don has a similar take and puts himself behind the gate and is resentful that nature is out there ready to enjoy and he is stuck waiting on someone else to let him out (or is it in).

I think that any artwork that causes a viewer to question or consider is a success. Questions that leave one wondering are good; it often means that the work has engaged you to a point that you will think about it after your no longer have access to the image. There are really no right and wrong answers for the viewer. What a powerful position to have.



A little context will help me explain my content in the Gate painting. This is a photograph of the gate in my painting, but this one is in a closed position. It is one of the entry gates to the Millennium Garden in Birr Castle Demesne . When it is closed you can look through it and ogle the beauty that is beyond it. You can be on the outside looking in, but I was actually on the inside looking out because I had access to the garden through my "secret" door in the wall that connected the property where I stayed with the Millennium Garden. For once gates did not keep me out or in. I felt powerful.

In this particular instance, I photographed the gate when it was opened up and pressed back on top of a hydrangea bush. I was interested in the idea of containment, how compressed the leaves were and how some of them were seeking ways out. It was man against nature and nature was winning. My earliest experiences with a cultivated garden was being barred by a gate. All I could do was stand on the fence and look longingly at what was inside. Gates always bring me back to that time. The leaves are a methaphor for me in that situation.

Through her comments, hwfarber shows a good sense of plants and the uselessness of trying to contain them. They will have their way in the end. If there is any possible way for plants to spread beyond man made boundaries it will be found. That brings us nicely to Kathy who wisely asks "Can nature really be contained?"

I was pleased with Kelly's reference to the suggestion of threat she perceived in the dark background. This made me realize that I had successfully created an emotive response in the viewer.

Compose: Subject vs. Content

Often in ones attempt to clarify, more confusion is created. I hope that will not be the way this post goes. Read on.

Definitions in the visual arts field are not always consistent and various artists choose to personalize terms based on their understanding of a word. I'm no exception. I was once sternly corrected for using subject and content interchangeably when these two words have discrete meanings according to my knowledgeable friend who went to art school (I didn't, but I can research!).

Subject matter is the literal, visible image in a work while content includes the connotative, symbolic, and suggestive aspects of the image. The subject matter is the subject of the artwork, e.g., still life, portrait, landscape etc. Gerald Brommer in Emotional content: How to create paintings that communicate notes that "Content is the reason for making a painting." He further elaborates:

"Content is not subject or things in the painting. Content is the communication of ideas, feelings and reactions connected with the subject...... When we look at a painting its content is what is sensed rather than what can be analyzed. It is the ultimate reason for creating art." Something in the painting must appeal or speak to the heart, spirit and soul of the viewer. He specifically calls this "emotional content".


If you refer back to my first and second post of the Compose series, you will see that my use of the word subject also inlcludes the characteristics of content noted above. I guess that is why I am comfortable using subject to cover everything.

Here's an image I posted before from my "Reading a Garden" series. The subject matter is a still life consisting of a gate with leaves behind it. What is the content?

Compose: Selecting a Subject 2

This is a painting I am having difficulty finishing and I am going to use it as an example as I go through the various posts I plan to do on composition. Hopefully at the end of the series I'll resolve the painting by using the information for reflection . There's nothing like a problem to get you thinking.

About the series:
As this piece is part of my Reading a Garden Series, it has to focus on something that stood out to me in my two week stay at Birr Castle Demesne. It must references my understanding /response to some experience. My process in selecting topics to paint starts with culling my photographs taken during my two week stay . Once I knew I wanted to create a work based on the daylilies , I proceeded to choose four photographs to use in image transfers, which I create in gel skins and apply to the board. These would be my starting point, evidence of my "real experiences". ( If you look closely you can see the edges of these transfers. I want them visible.) From these I begin to change the images by adding to them and creating whole new sections using paint and paper or eroding the details they provide until I have captured what I remember (mostly sense memories) from the experience. As more time intervenes I'm forgetting much and embellishing more and more of the details.

In my last post I listed a series of things to consider in selecting a subject to paint. I will try to answer them with reference to this painting. My point is if I had considered them in more depth before I began the work rather than just barging in , I might not be in this trouble. I plan to post the questions next to my paint table for future reminders.

Why are you attracted to the subject? Why does it appeal to you?

This is my fourteenth piece in this series and one of four works focusing on flowers chosen for different reasons.

These Daylilies grew in abundance along a path I walked each day in The Millennium Garden in Birr Castle Demesne. There were orange ones and yellow ones which I photographed on several different days. The vibrancy of the orange/rust ones captured my attention and the yellow ones were left in the background.

Daylilies (hemerocallis) are very interesting structurally. I am attracted to tall graceful plants with more complicated flower structures. The daylily also has long, narrow, blade like leaves that move in the wind and seem to grow in all directions. The most fascinating thing about the flowers on these plants is that they open at sunrise and wither at sunset. Each day new ones are in bloom so you are never seeing the same one twice. It is this point that most interests me because it represents the essence of the temporary nature of beauty and how fleeting our lives are. You have to hand it to daylilies they give it their all for one day.

What emotion grabs you when you look at it? How can you express this emotion?

I'm attracted to their vibrant colour, elegance and freedom to move so readily in the wind. One one hand I like the fact that I'm seeing new blooms every day and the scene is continuously changing, but underneath there is melancholy because they are so short lived and in this way not free at all. I'm conflicted, this is probably why I am having so much trouble finishing this work.

What part of the subject should be emphasized to maximize the emotion /impression?
The colour, elegance, structure and their freedom are easy to emphasize. I am not capturing the transience that is so important to my perception of them. Perhaps I need to refocus and paint one or two obviously withered ones, but I also need to somehow portray the melancholy I feel about these flowers. That is very subtle and right now I'm at a loss about how to show it. I'll keep going with the questions/suggestions ...

What colours/key suits the mood you want to impart?

This might be my area where I have to solve the melancholy issue by toning down the vibrancy. I have really played up the leaves which support the flowers - maybe they are a bit too energetic and playful. The flowers are more low key and seem to be working better with the emotions I am interested in imparting.


What will identify this painting as yours (showing yourself in the painting)?
The process I am using beginning with phototransfers and manipulating them based on the erosion of memory with the passage of time has become a constant in my work of late. The close up, controlled view adds to the me-ness of the work. The subject matter is consistent with my interests and past work.

That's my effort at reflection. I don't want to invest hours into the process because when I reread it tomorrow i'll have a whole new set of ideas. I'm sure the able comments of my readers will move me along with this. Comments anyone?

Compose: Selecting a Subject

The first step in the creation of an outstanding artwork is the selection of the subject matter. In the early phases of ones practice subject matter may be partially influenced by teachers in school or workshops, through reading popular art magazines or viewing art produced by others. This is a time of finding your way, of having faith in the knowledge of others, of deciding what you want to do and how you want to do it. The search for subject is often overshadowed by process, by the time spent learning to use different media and to render well.

Then comes the time when you are in your own studio with a blank canvas , and you realize that it's not about the techniques you worked so hard to learn, but that the work you create should be about something. Art is a form of communication and all the decisions from topic onward are yours to make. In my own situation, I had taken dozens of classes and workshops, read numerous art books, seen thousands of art works in my travels, been to local art galleries and had friends who were successful artists. I wanted to be an artist who created thoughtful work. About what? Panic!

It's a scary time, a time when you realize that if you are going to be successful, you have to bring something unique to the work you do. If you don't have something that is unique to add, why bother? Around the time of this epiphany I was reading a book called Design and Composition Secrets of Professional Artists.

This was an important book in my career that taught me that there are many roads to follow, and that they all begin with a personal view of the world. It was also at that time that I accepted that my past experiences in another profession were an advantage rather than something that was setting me back. I'm sure Donna Baspaly has no idea that several points on one of her composition checklists changed how I began to think about subject matter. Donna relies heavily on a series of checklists to keep her in tune with her work through the whole process of creation.


While I've made some minor additions these are Donna's questions about subject:

• why are you attracted to the subject? why does it appeal to you?
• what emotion grabs you when you look at it? how can you express this emotion?
• what part of the subject should be emphasized to maximize that emotion/impression?
• what colours/key suits the mood you want to impart?
• what will identify this painting as yours (showing yourself in the painting) ?

Every design decision you make should bring you back to your primary reason for creating the work.

Tom Huntley in this same book agrees that all starts with subject and advises "do not record what you see, interpret what you feel."

The Midas Touch

The Midas Touch, 8 x 10 in. encaustic mixed media

It's never just a flower for me. There is always some underlying reason why I choose to highlight one flower over another in my work. Tulips have an interesting history that we can learn from.

Tulips are native to the western Mediterranean and the steppes of Central Asia. The empire of the Ottoman Turks once included much of the land that was the natural habitat of the tulip. It was through Turkey that most of the tulips reached Western Europe.

The shape of the tulip reminded those first Europeans who acquired them of Turkish headwear, and they dubbed the flower "tulipan", from "tuilbend", a Turkish word for "turban". The Italian word tulipano came from the Turkish word tulibend. From "tulipan" came the French word "tulipe" and the English word tulip.

The Turks cultivated the tulip widely and in 1562 the first large shipment of tulips reached Antwerp, then part of the Dutch nation. It is hard to believe that there was a time in the 1630's when the desire for highly prized tulips created through horticultural experimentation led to "tulipomania" . At that time tulips were available only to the rich who coveted them for their beauty, rarity and status. Once middle class merchants and farmers began to realize how much money was involved in the tulip trade they sensed economic opportunity. Everyone wanted in. The bottom fell out of the market during 1637 when bulb merchants couldn't get the usual inflated prices for their bulbs. Word spread like wildfire and the market crashed. Vanity and greed led to the economic downfall of many men at that time. Sound familiar?

This work reflects the tulip as a prized object, cultivated and desired through history. Today interest in new varieties of tulips remains high. The yellow parrot tulips represented on the right side of the work are very popular. The left side of the work alludes to some of the history of the tulip.

Variations on a theme

A Bridge to Cross (2009) 8 x 10 in. encaustic

Our aesthetic in art creation is the sum of all our experiences and interests. When I go to my studio I often just let things happen. I am much more about the process and the materials than I am about detailed planning. I trust that my intuition will lead me in the right direction. I often start work based on something that might not be considered a good starting place by some artists. My connections grow as I create, things become clear. This work is a good example of how I operate.

I began this piece at the encaustic workshop in August . Originally it was just the bottom section which was a practice board exploring layered colour, scraping back and discovering the properties of metallic encaustic when used with solid colours. In other words there was no big plan. I was very pleased with the effect I created, and in retrospect realized how it mimicked some of the colour schemes I saw in my travels in Europe especially Italy. The lusciousness of gold cannot be denied and survives in my memory. Interesting because I prefer silver not gold.

After several weeks, I created the top section while experimenting with sheer fabric with some flocking on it. I developed a whole process of building up colours and layers to create this patterning reminiscent of fabrics I saw in Venice. Things were shaping up . I now had two parts that I loved. I place them together and started We are Neighbours discussed in the previous post. My head was in a whole other realm when I worked on that. It was developed with intent from the word go. While cleaning up, I saw the two practice pieces on my table having different patterns but with many similarities. I looked at them with the thoughts behind We are Neighbours - about the walls we build around ourselves as individuals and countries. About choosing to dwell on differences when we should be focusing on similarities. We all have bridges to cross .

Changing times

We Are Neighbours (2009) 9.5 x 10.5 in. encaustic mixed media on board

What's going on here? No flowers, no peeling wallpaper, no rusty objects, no family imagery. Where did this work come from? Is it from the same person as the work in the previous post? I did mention not censoring my experiments in a new medium, but I wasn't expecting a whole change in content. Although this work might not look the same as most of my other work, there is a subtle link to the passage of time and its effects - my consistent theme.

My mind has been immersed in child like things lately because of my two granddaughters. I'm buying new children's books and games and talking about childlike things. I'm seeing the world through innocent eyes. A child's ideas about the world and how to exist in it develop early through family and schooling. While most parents try their best to model positive treatment of others and provide experiences that will develop a social conscience, the world that children grow up in doesn't always fit their upbringing. Things can go wrong, lessons can be forgotten and a new beliefs formed. We are not always neighbours.

Learning Curves

My life as a visual artist has been relatively short when compared to my chronological age. As a result of starting later in life, I always have this feeling that I don't have a lot of time to waste. When confronted with new learning, I tend to really dive in the deep end. First I read obsessively, then I order the materials (too many), and then comes the long process of experimentation. That's where I am now with encaustic. I'll remember October as the wax month.

I've certainly run through a lot of encaustic medium and I've learned quite a bit from my experiences. I try not to worry about the end product in the beginning stages because needing a product makes me work more cautiously, and that is not what you want before you've found your stride. I've been working on small boards mostly and trying all kinds of things, some successful and some not. I've found out that I like using wax for its transparency, and when I use colour is is applied in glazes rather than full strength. It is the delicacy that appeals to me most. Last week I completed a piece that I am satisfied with so it's time to share. Today I drop off this work and four others for a group show at The Leyton Gallery which opens on November 13.

Moments (10 x 24in.) encaustic with photo transfer & paper on board
(Only my photography is skewed )

I like the fact that I am finding my voice in encaustic. Even though this is a new medium for me, the result is still recognizable as my work, but it seems to be more delicate and ephemeral than my acrylic work. These are photo transfers from shots I took during my stay at Birr Castle Demesne. It is so much easier to do a transfer from a photocopy directly onto the wax. It give such a floating effect and I think that is why my work is looking more delicate.

Below is one of my mixed media acrylic paintings from my Reading a Garden series that is really saying the same thing, but it has a very different look. I even used one of the images in both works.

Ephemeral (2009) 10 x 24 in.

photo transfer, paper , acrylic mediums and paint on board

The answer

My last post left you with an artist statement to consider and attempt to imagine what the artist's work is like. Here's the artist statement:

"Through themes of childhood, sexuality and recollection (the artist's) work reveals narratives that are divined from her dreamlike world. This invented place is a fount from which (the artist) has drawn from since her childhood and which she is continually mapping and exploring. The work is a compendium of lost feelings, half dreams and landscapes that seeks to evoke a sense of intimacy, familiarity and wistfulness. Inspired in part by fairy tales by the forests and lakes near her home in Ottawa, these mixed media collages unveil a strange enchantment, one shared between nature and imagination."

And the guest artist is...

Amy A Thompson who was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1971. She studied Fine Art at York University and graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design with honours in 1995. Amy is represented in Ottawa by Dale Smith Gallery and currently has a solo exhibition there called Glint.

I've selected three of Amy's mixed media works to highlight here. I hope they fairly represent her work over the last three years. For a more complete listing of Amy's work visit her website where all the works are categorized by theme/series in the lower left corner under menu.

I was particularly taken with the series: Lost Albums II , Fortune Birds, Have a Good Time and Smut. As viewers we respond to work based on our own experiences and interests, I know Amy's work speaks to me because of its delicacy and references to childhood and imagination. It plays directly into my past experiences as a primary teacher. Her use of patterned backgrounds , mostly in subtle hues, adds safeness, predictability and a child like innocence to the scenes . At times this innocence is juxtaposed with more serious, adult content as in Smut which is an interesting treatment of sexuality. I thought is represented this adult world and a child's discovery of it very well. These pieces brought back memories of my first introduction to 'the birds and bees" at age 9 when another child provided very descriptive images of exactly what went on in the bedroom. But my understanding of it was still influenced by my innocent life up to that point. The works in Smut brought me back to that time in my life.

In Fortune Birds, Amy integrates fortune cookie sayings into bird collage portraits. I love the lyrical line work that represents bird song. I was fascinated with this execution because I am working on a painting in my Reading a Garden series where I wanted to represent birdsong, I'm still thinking about that and now nothing will be good enough because I loved what Amy did. I also collect fortune cookie wisdom but up to this point I've never done anything with it.

Old Shool 1, 2009, mixed media on board 18 x 18.5 in.


Moonchild, 2008, mixed media on paper , 35.25 x 28.5 in.

Haunt- Ladies Night Out, 2007 , mixed media on paper, 23.5 x 14.5

All three images found on Dale Smith Gallery , used with artist's permission.

Did your impressions from reading Amy's artist statement and her work match?

I would love to hear my readers responses to this work which made a mark with me.

The reason why

The world of the internet has made viewing art possible by a simple finger click. Artists can prowl the web to their hearts' delight, visit different countries, and view art that they might never otherwise see. There are positives and negatives connected to this unlimited display of artwork. As with reading an art book, you can never get all the nuances of a work, the size/scale, the manner of application, material choices, textural subtleties, layers, etc., when looking online. You can, however, get a good sense of overall style and content.

One thing I like about web exploration is the presence of artist bios, artist statements and an archive of work. It is easier to "place" an artist on the web than when you see one exhibition. My online education certainly helped me when I was struggling with the larger themes in art and trying to place mine within a larger context. Reading so many artist statements also helped me write my own.

One of my favourite web activities is finding an artist, and reading the bio and artist statement before I look at the gallery/portfolio. Why would I do this? I like to envision how the art would look based on the statement and other aspects of the artist's history. Am I a good predictor based on this information? Not always! I find it very interesting that words often do not help us predict art style and content, but they do inform our viewing once the work is in front of us.

I thought I would set up a similar exercise for my readers. Here is an artist statement from an artist whose work I discovered on my last trip to Ottawa. Read it and try to imagine or describe what the work might be like. I will reveal the work in the next post.

Artist statement :
"Through themes of childhood, sexuality and recollection (the artist's) work reveals narratives that are divined from her dreamlike world. This invented place is a fount from which (the artist) has drawn from since her childhood and which she is continually mapping and exploring. The work is a compendium of lost feelings, half dreams and landscapes that seeks to evoke a sense of intimacy, familiarity and wistfulness. Inspired in part by fairy tales by the forests and lakes near her home in Ottawa, these mixed media collages unveil a strange enchantment, one shared between nature and imagination."

In my search for artist statements for this activity, I initially went to artists whose work I am very familiar with and in many cases their statement did not help to elaborate the nature of their work . I think there is a lesson in that. If someone read your artist statement would it provide an inroad to what you do as an artist?

Why floral art ?

I am attracted to floral imagery because flowers, like people, change with passing time. The passage of time and its effects on nature, objects, memory and identity is a consistent theme in my work . Flowers offer a different perspective on the passage of time , one that carries the hope of renewal within the rhythmic pattern of growth and decay.

Flowers are a perfect metaphor for our lives. Artist Simon Bull has a similar take . "Flowers speak to us about our own human experience; they grow and go through different phases of life just as we do," Bull says. "They tell us stories that can be connected to ourselves."

One of my first artist statements noted that "flowers are insignificant in size and blend into nature's overall design. Their worth is often assessed by fleeting glance and a momentary recognition of beauty." Some artists like Georgia O'Keeffe deal with the insignificance of flowers by greatly enlarging their scale to put them in your face as it were. I have a much more subtle approach , keeping my work small and intimate and inviting the viewer to come closer to see the complex world I create by using colour, texture and subtle layering. Flowers have their own language, one of subtle nuances and subtexts, that goes beyond external appearances. Meaning is found in colour, shape, location, stages of growth and historical connections. I invite viewers to look beyond the obvious to determine what flowers tell us about life. Ryall 2004

The genre of floral art has a long history with origins reaching back to the art of ancient Egypt where flowers were painted on vessels and clothing. Many paintings from the middle ages and onward in Europe use flowers to symbolize various aspects of religion, and in Dutch still life works flowers were often reminders that the delights of the world are transitory. During that time when Dutch vanitas paintings were popular, varieties of flowers were available because of exploration in the far east and the new world. There seemed to be an endless supply of subject matter with the exotic being highly sought and represented through art.

The use of flowers during Victorian times to send messages connected to emotions or personal characteristics has always intrigued me. Rather than directly impart the sentiment to another person, it was all said with flowers. Such a safe, discreet way to behave! Sometimes a whole bouquet needed to be interpreted together to understand the message from the sender. Certainly, this was a very different kind of text. If you received a bouquet of daffodils, pansies and periwinkle the sender would be commenting on your thoughtfulness as a friend and expressing the highest regard for you. Similarly, Chinese flower paintings represent specific emotions and are given as gifts to convey a range of sentiments. The orchid represents a refined, noble or beautiful person, and the peony symbolizes wealth or good fortune.

I often use this "language of flowers" to impart messages to my viewers. I am sending the messages in a language that is now defunct to most people. I don't see this as a useless activity. It is a statement on my part that communication is often a one way affair with the other party being unwilling or unable to receive what is communicated. This theme of communication and how different "texts" can or cannot be read reflects my experiences with students who struggled to make sense of the written word. For them written language was a one way street. My latest body of work "Reading a garden" treats a garden as a text and explore how we make meaning from gardens based on our background knowledge. This work goes a step further and also explores how what we come to understand from our experiences fades quickly with the passage of time.