December 28, 2010

A New Painting: "Orange Crossing".

Orange Crossing, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches.


The crisp, bright geometry of orange cylinders and rectangle cross the softer grays of organic tubing. In its crisscrossing, this painting is like Crossed Green, bright forms above light blacks. I like the contrast, the sense of things being held in, ready to burst out of confines; also the insistent linear abstraction of the orange forms. Is it a world in or out of balance?

I've posted a detail below, which on my screen shows up as a little over actual size, to give some sense of the brushwork. As opposed to Triangle and Cylinder, a seemingly simpler composition which gave me a lot of trouble, I had fun painting the delicately curving and changing forms of the black tubing.


5 comments:

  1. love the folds, the way you've captured light and shadow!

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  2. thanks, LauraX. I made it a point to be slow and patient in painting the folds and details of the blacks and grays, and that helped in getting it all to be convincing.

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  3. This is a wonderful combination! I like the soft loops behind straight lines.

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  4. Thanks, Susan. I was trying to figure out why this painting got a big response on Facebook, and then realized it was just what you point out: the combination of hard and soft, especially the organic nature of the hose, since little of my work has organic elements in it.

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