Larger Dimensions in the Studio
SGHolland Oct 7 2017
Work on the easel.
These will eventually become LAB I and LAB II . Both of these full-sheet paintings (22x30") are fun to work on, and they and I have been changing daily.
The first notion with these was “dripping trees” since I began with running paint drips down from the top in a wet on wet wash. Then late at night I decided to work on the dry painting with horizontal lines. I’m using watercolor, pastel, charcoal and some thinned ground to bring up the light portions. I embedded salt in the wet wash that is the object in upper right quadrant, and am surprised to find it sparkling iridescently at me in certain lights. Salt make a great texture in a wet wash.
The design is loosely based on The Golden Ratio — recently seen quite often in weather reports of hurricanes as well as the familiar Nautilus Shell’s interior, and many other phenomenal designs. I did not measure, of course. (I apologize, dear Edward Povey.) But still… a spiral does encourage the eye to stay inside the frame of a painting, and so I used curves in places.
Leonardo was interested in the Golden ratio, and so might we take a look at how that natural shape is part of the natural world — with no help from a compass or human measuring devices. If it’s good enough for God, it should be very attractive to us!
Abstract art is, to my own way of thinking, pretty much the same matters of line, form, value, color, and technique. Whether it’s a rendering of a real object or person, or whether it’s the expression of an idea or mood or revelation that has no familiar shape.
The Sketchbook series I recently did reminded me of how very related visual ways of expressing things are, simply because whatever I put in that book had the same challenges, really. Line, form, value, color, technique all lined up like steps no matter whether I was making an abstract expression of a shape or the expression of a real cat that says meow. As they said in art school, the model can be seen as a lump of clay.
My thanks to those who have enjoyed my ongoing art journeys of one kind or another — it is really so good to have people who will listen to me talk about something that has been a sort of drive all my life, and still is as stimulating as it was when I was splashing around with finger paints! (I still sometimes paint with my fingers.)
Susan Holland ©2017
