20 April 2009

etsy:
“Falling” by Kathy Panton, etsy seller KathyPanton

This is a print of a gouache painting by Kathy Panton entitled “Falling.” The composition acts on three main elements: color, shape, and movement. The color is quite striking. It’s bold, bright, and saturated. The red, magenta, orange, yellow, and green are present in their purest most saturated hues. And these colors pop because they are presented against each other in the context of how they mix as colors. The muddier, duller, earthier tones that occur when saturated colors mix cause contrast. Another form of contrast is shape: the globular dot-like clusters of color that occur on the top half of the picture plane. They are organic and almost cellular. And they morph into a plane of a different and more abstract presentation of color at the bottom half of the composition. This morphing of shape and simultaneous change of color creates movement within the piece. It’s a device that directs the viewer’s eyes from one end of the composition to the other, from top to bottom.
available at:
KathyPanton: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6554486

On a technical note for those of you wondering what the difference between gouache and watercolor is: gouache paint is like watercolor paint but has a chalk substance added to it so that the paint is more opaque as opposed to being transparent.

song:
“Roam” by the B-52s from the album “Cosmic Thing”

artist: Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky 16 December 1866 – 13 December 1944) was a famous 20th Century artist, known primarily for his abstract paintings, he was also a print maker and art theorist. He was born in Moscow, Russia. He studied law and economics at the University of Moscow. He became a professor at University of Dorpat, but had become so fascinated by art that he left for Munich to enroll in Anton Azbe's private painting school. He went on to study at the Munich Acedemy of the Arts. He formed Der Blaue Reiter (translation: The Blue Rider) with Franz Marc and other German expressionists. He is best known for his expressionist works, focusing on color and abstract patterns, and for the theory he postulated in his published book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” about the relationship between music and painting.
artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
wassilykandinsky.net
Kandinsky
Glyphs

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30 March 2009

etsy:
“All Life is An Experiment” by Blenda Tyvoll, etsy seller blendastudio

This piece is a limited edition print of a mixed media painting by Blenda Tyvoll, etsy seller blendastudio. The piece depicts two birds on the plane of a 4 X 5 grid of squares which is presented with collage elements and lettering that reads “all life is an experiement.” Color is one of the primary active visual components of the piece. The viewer’s eye is drawn to the pure cerulean blue and crimson red hues of the birds. The clarity with which those colors are presented contrasts with the overall tone of the background grid of squares, which while is contains many isolated areas of pure color is mostly a combination of beige, gray, and ochre tones. The background, while it has blips of bright color, is duller and more subdued. However, those bright blips of color in the background, many of which are floral patterned elements of collage, act in concert with the color of the bird to keep the composition active, drawing the viewer’s eye throughout the entirety of the piece. Further directing the eye of the viewer is the contrast presented between light and dark color through the use of black outlines or the visual suggestion of black outlines. The selective use of black draws the eye towards certain areas; were every square of the grid or every contour of the birds outlined with the same intensity, then the outline would be less effective in drawing the eye to certain shapes with a certain emphasis. In other words, black outline is presented in the form of intellectual line. Black or dark color is also presented in a limited fashion, which makes it visually emphatic, like the presence of sepia tones at the top and bottom of the piece (more so than in the middle of the composition). The application of emphatic colors is very selective and capricious; it’s intentional or intrinsic without being patterned or clichéd. It also contributes to the emotional tone of the piece, which is capricious and whimsical, but also mature and sublime.
available at:
blendastudio: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5748726

song:
“True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper from the album “True Colors”

artist: Henri Matisse
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French painter known mostly as a Fauvist. He was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. He studied law in Paris, and worked as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis. He became interested in painting while convalescing from a bout with appendicitis. In Paris he studied at the Académie Julian. He painted in a style that emphasized color, line, and two-dimensionality. And exhibited with artists using a similar style; they came to be known as Fauvists through the critique of an art critic, referring to the work of one of their shows as "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" (translation: Donatello among the wild beasts). He is best known for such works as “ The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)”, oil on canvas 1908, and “The Dance” oil on canvas 1909.
National Gallery of Art
Matisse Museum
artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
artelino
Matisse.net

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