reminded me of something

Stuck in a rut, predictable? I like to think of it as style - my fondness for the horizontal format. This is what I am working on now, the paper is Colourfix (sanded pastel paper), and the image is 6 1/2" high and 23" long. I think of this piece as a cousin to Neptune's Leaves (NL can be seen in my right sidebar and a segment of it is in my header). The main similarity is that the background is going to be a gradation combo of aquamarine and teal-ish colours. Also, the subject matter is based on leaves which shall be funked up according to my imagination.

The inspiration comes from pictures I took of one of my hosta plants. The shape of the leaves and the graceful curving lines were what got me. As I looked at my small preliminary sketch of these two leaf shapes, I kept having the thought that the lines in the leaves reminded me of something. Once I worked my drawing up to the 23 inch long version, I saw it - the lines remind me of the curved ridges on the throat of a humpback whale! Humpback Hostas, how is that for an obtuse title? :-) 

As you probably can tell, I am letting the tooth of the paper show so that I can benefit from the glow of the red paper. By the time I have all my layers on, the tooth shall be more covered more but the red shall still be influencing the look of the piece. No burnishing here. My favourite medium of art work to look at is pastel so when working on sanded papers, I like my work to have a sense of pastel about them.

Summer is whizzing by, it shall be August in a few days. I was sorting some garden pics last night. When I saw the lilac pictures, I was struck by how having all the lilac bushes in bloom seemed such a long time ago...I would like to hit some sort of summer pause button!

Abstracted Realism - new cp wip

'rose flame', work in progress, 15" x 8", coloured pencil on Stonehenge

copyright Teresa Mallen

Isn't it wonderful to start a new piece? I thought I needed a break from working big but I missed a larger format so this one is 15 inches by 8 inches - lots of room to stretch out and breathe! So what am I doing with this and what do I mean by abstracted realism? Well, have a look at my rose photo below.

Using Photoshop, I played with some reference photos. I ended up with a composition that I really liked. I chose a close up view, a vertical slice of the center of the rose. This piece is all about shapes and curves. I saw curves that reminded me of a candle flame or smoke rising. That is the story I wish to tell with this new work. The piece is grounded in realism as I am drawing an actual rose but it is also undergoing a bit of abstraction as the cropping focuses on shapes and curves. I love the shapes and curves of the crop and it doesn't really matter to me if the source is a rose or a tree branch or whatever.

I have lots of yummy colour down already but for now the photo isn't showing it well. I am working on white Stonehenge and I am building up colour by applying light layers of pigment. I saw a few other compositions that appealed to me so I think there may be a rose series in the work here...maybe...

For those of you who are wondering if there is going to be a May issue of my newsletter...humm, I am quite busy right now with commitments outside of the studio so it may be a while before I can get writing another issue. For those of you who are subscribers, you will of course be notified as soon as a new issue has been published. The silver lining is that for those of you who are new members, you have more time to catch up with your reading of past newsletters. If you are new to my blog and you don't have a clue what I am talking about, hop on over to my website to read my newsletters for coloured pencil enthusiasts.

Finally, for the birders out there, not only did I hear a whip-poor-will this week, (as mentioned in a previous post) I actually saw a mother and her oh so adorable baby (half way between fluff and feathers). I was walking my dog one evening and we happened upon them resting in the grass. Mom flew off. I so wish I had my camera so I could have taken a picture of the baby. The site was close to the house and I could have returned to the spot but I didn't want to disturb them more than we had. Don't worry, I kept my dog from having a curious sniff. :-)