June 22, 2007
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Thursday nights I have art class. I love my class. We have great people, great conversation and of course a great teacher. Tonight I was so excited to paint. I mentioned this to my teacher and she said “well you know what that means.” What is usually means is that I usually wouldn’t be able to produce anything. It’s almost like your excitement gets the better of you. I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case tonight.
The painting above is by Jamie Wyeth. He’s the son of the more poplular Andrew Wyeth. I am however, partial to Jamie’s use of color. This painting is called The Lighthouse. I love how he used green for the sky and how the subject’s (man? woman?) hair is whipping around. You can feel the impending storm, you can feel the energy and the electricity. Color is what draws me into a painting plain and simple. It isn’t about using the right color for something. It doens’t mean all sky’s are blue and all tree’s are green. It’s what the artist represents with their use of color. In this case Jamie Wyeth shows us energy. You aren’t sure what kind of energy. Is it positive? Is in negative? Is this person slowly and carefully approaching the home of on old lover or are they running away to the safety of the lighthouse to meet someone? You don’t know. For me a big part of the beauty of art is that you can make up the story. You can look at something and be so drawn in that before you know it you’ve created a life for the person of people on the canvas.
This is a painting by John Singleton Copley called “Watson and the Shark”. It’s in the permanent collection of the MFA in Boston. One of the things I like best about this painting is it is a large painting - probably 4 feet by 6 feet. When I look at this piece I no longer feel like I am an observer. I feel like I am on a boat watching this all take place. Without knowing the story it’s obvious that the person in the water (Watson) is about to be attacked by the shark. I can feel the terror coming off him, I can see his shipmates rushing to save him and you can see the shark has one target in his sights. All of this from paint on canvas AND seeing how this painting was done in 1778 all done from memory. It’s fantastic and I love it.
All of this being said, I don’t paint representationally, not at all. I paint abstract. I think that the argument could be made that color is even more important to abstract work. Color becomes your subject. Most people are thrown off by abstract because they want to know “what it is”. Sorry folks you just have to look at it and make up your own story.
These are two that I finished during class. As I mentioned the non producing prophecy did not come to pass. I especially like the blue one, I’m really happy with how it came out. The colors are a bit more vibrant in person but I think you can get the picture.
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