In praise of red

Are you attracted to red in art work? I find it impossible to ignore  red in any kind of design.  It is even more attractive to me when used in abstract or non - representational work.  When a work has little or no recognizable content, we automatically  notice the element that has the most contrast. Red is bold and grabs attention.

All of the works below have a neutral palette (mostly grays and black) with a splash of red that creates an invigorating composition. You may already be familiar with some of these artists, but I hope you find at least one that is new to you.

 Mary Ann Wakeley | mawakeley - Variation on a Theme. On birch plywood, 30x30”

Fiona Watson,   Flight Paths. etching , 50 x 50 cm on 310 g Hahnemuhle paper

Judy Pfaff, ''Year of the Dog #6,'' 2009, woodblock, collage, painting, 39 7/8 x 87 1/8''.

 Günter Ludwig, “Traces”, mixed media

 Yves Cheval , Sans Titre.  Huile sur Bois 100x100 cm, Source

Yves Cheval, Sans Titre, Source

 

Source

miniprint 005  by Bea Mahan, Source

Odilon Redon

Revealed – 60″ x 36″ by Nancy Eckels, Source

This week I am taken with the work of Yves Cheval. There are lots of secrets revealed in his work when you have a closer look. I'm always pulled in to work with subtle layers.

New work

Untitled (6 x 6 in.) encaustic, paper, pigment stick

Continuing with my explorations in encaustic with red....

One of the fantastic qualities of encaustic is its softness which enables you to incise lines using various tools (stylus, pottery or sculpture tools, nails, skewers etc).

Once made, the lines can be highlighted by using a different colour of encaustic paint or by rubbing oil/pigment stick or oil pastel into the grooves . Residue left on the surface of he work can be cleaned by continuous rubbing with a soft cloth. An added advantage of using pastel or oil stick is that it also catches up in any imperfections in the surface and gives a more textured look. This is one of the ways you can move colour around subtly in a composition.

We Are Neighbours (2009) 9 x 10 in. encaustic, paper, pigment stick

You can also brush powdered graphite etc, into the groves, wipe off remaining powder on the surface with vegetable oil ,and seal with a thin layer of clear encaustic medium.

What's new

Untitled, 6 x 6 in. encaustic, pigment stick, paper on board

I'm continuing my explorations in encaustic in an attempt to find my voice in this medium. Red and its variations and symbolism seems to be a constant theme in my work lately. I'm thinking about that.

In process

I'm still thinking about a new work I began during my encaustic marathon last weekend. I am pleased with many parts of it but it won't declare itself finished. It was begun with great enthusiasm but waned as I proceeded. Sometimes the work that is fully conceived before you begin, peters out as you work. This is such a work.

If you follow my blog you know that I've returned repeatedly to the poppy in many of my explorations. It is loaded with symbolism and beauty. They have long been used as a symbol of sleep and death. The opium extracted from poppies has a sedative effect on the body and their red colour is connected to blood and death. It is difficult to image medicine with codeine or morphine. In many Greco - Roman myths, poppies were a favourite offering to the dead. If you are an explorer of cemeteries you will find poppies adorning tombstones to symbolize eternal sleep.

Ancient Greeks thought that poppies were a sign of fertility. Poppy seeds were thought to bring health and strength so Greek athletes were given mixtures of poppy seeds, honey, and wine.

Poppies.ws describes the use of Godfrey's Cordial during the Industrial Revolution. It was cheaper than food and kept hungry children quiet. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the tincture of opium called laudanum was as casually bought and used as aspirin is today. A large number of poets and writers of this era were opium addicts. It is hard to believe that these concoction were still in use in 1910 and it took food and drug laws to remove this dangerous narcotic from patent medicines.

In more recent times we use the The red Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas), a common weed in Europe, to commemorate the war dead.

The poppy in this work is dreamlike and emerges from a pattern of past centuries.

The beginning stage of "Rising"

The design at the bottom is created using a sheer and flocked fabric fused into encaustic and then brushed with more red encaustic to pick up the highs and lows of the material.

After several layers of cadmium red encaustic is added and fused I applied a layer of Egyptian purple...

and then Iridescent gold metallic - all R and F Paints

Then the hard work began as I used a large blade to scrape back all the excess encaustic colours to reveal the highs and lows of the original pattern.

The shadow of the poppy in the upper right is an image transfer of a drawing I created this summer. I'm still trying to integrate the dream like quality of the poppy with the heavy patterning at the bottom. No solutions are occurring yet. I always seem to set up these dichotomies that are difficult to marry.