Tag: landscape

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Continuing the Pond Project

This most resent piece is based on a photo of the Humboldt Park lily pond taken about a month ago.  This was actually the second time I painted from this photo.  This piece began as a demonstration piece for my intro to oil painting class.  The painting is larger (11″ x 14″).  Also, you will notice that the technique is slightly different.  I used a brush!  I have been using only painting knives in my other pieces, but since this was a painting demonstration I incorporated brushwork,  Going forward I would like to incorporate brushwork a little more into my Chromascape pieces.  While I would like to remain primarily a knife painter, I see no reason not to use a brush for contrast of mark, detail, or finishing touches.  I had a lot of fun with this painting and am happy with the way it turned out!

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Pond Study Excerpt

Today I did number 14 in  my Pond Study Series.  You can see the dulling of colors, which is a departure from my usual palette.  The lone willow tree just right of the center is holding onto its foliage, as is the adjacent pine.  The other side of the pond grows more and more bare.  Strangely, the sky seems perpetually grayer than usual.  I purposefully limited my palette in composing this painting.  I used only ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow, burnt umber, and titanium white.  I think this limitation forced me to stay within a certain range of tone throughout the piece.  I want to continue with this practice in having painting related goals for future pond studies.  I continue to learn not only about observation of a subject matter but also about paint manipulation.  I am allowed risks and experiments through the repetition.  I would suggest this kind of project for any artist.  This should be done periodically through any artists career as an opportunity for growth and discovery.  For future pond study pieces I will limit palette, mark making, and time of execution.  It is a strange feeling, that I am somehow becoming connected to this scene.  I am seeing my own personal transformations through the land’s seasonal phases.

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Landscapes Across the Country

I have just returned from a road trip to the southwest and back. The round trip 30 hour drive was done in a week, which means we spent a lot of time in the car. From the road I saw great landscapes across many states. I am truly inspired and in awe of the diversity that can be found in such a short trip. I observed the flat plains of Iowa, the deserts of New Mexico, the steep cliffs of Arizona, and the mountains of Colorado. The contrast seen in a single day’s drive is astounding. Of course I took many photos and cannot wait to make them all paintings. More importantly, I think I have a greater appreciation for the subtleties in landscape. For example, after half a days spent driving through the Rocky Mountains, I was struck by the quiet elegance found in the yellow plains of Nebraska and Iowa against a sharp blue sky. There is certainly an opportunity for perspective here.

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Reflections on Landscape

Driving down the road today on my way to work I was struck by the subtle color changes that have occurred in the Wisconsin landscape over the last month.  Summer now in full swing, the landscape has filled in with vibrant greens.  However, a rather dry few weeks is making many of the grassy areas in Mitchell Park turn yellow.  The color relationships fascinate me.  When I observe a panorama I am quickly struck by the horizontal color bands of earth and sky.  Tree lines are often a dramatic transition on the horizon.  These relationships are really what drive my work.  I often paint the same scene more than once- manipulating, enhancing, and tweaking the colors each time.  I have taken hundred of pictures, often from my car.  These pictures inform most of my paintings.

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The Experience of Landscape – Jay Appleton

I am currently reading Jay Appleton’s The Experience of Landscape.  This 1975 text delves into the Prospect-Refuge Theory of Appleton’s.  This theory suggests that there are biological, instinctual reasons for our appreciation of landscape.  Appleton writes that we create symbols of prospect and refuge and these symbols filter our aesthetic interest in landscape.

“The strategic value of a landscape, therefore, whether natural or man-made, is related to the arrangement of objects which combine to provide collectively these two kinds of opportunity, [prospect and refuge] and when this strategic value ceases to be essential to survival it continues to be apprehended aesthetically.” (Appleton, 74)

Appleton goes on to analyze landscape in a very formulaic way.  While I find the idea very compelling, it is still a little to simplistic for me.  I always imagined our emotional and aesthetic reactions to be more complex.  I am, of course, not done with the book yet and look forward to the rest of Appleton’s discussion.