Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Moving to the next painting... but still trying to digest my recent artistic elucubrations!

The Yoga instructor that I used as a model is interested in seeing the results of my efforts in person... so, I'm preparing a mini exhibition for her...

As I look at this production, it's becoming clearer in my mind that I want to strive for a better balance in the integration of all the painting approaches that I've used so far. When it comes to my use of colors, I would like to introduce areas of tranquility to balance high intensity areas. In terms of rendition, I would like some areas to be blurry or undefined, others to be sharply in focus. In a way, I'm no longer satisfied in constructing half decent replicas of human forms; I now want to deconstruct partially these forms. In terms of textures, I would like certain areas to be highly textured, others to be much smoother or even exposing bare canvas. Finally, with regard to my use of photographs, I would like them to be a departure point, not an end point!

This suggests a totally new way of working. I want to start a new painting... but I don't know where to start!

Note to self: "Exploration in my case seems to lead to exaggerations in a given direction... after a while I feel the need to backtrack a little in an attempt to find a better balance... or is it just to avoid boredom. If it's the latter, that could be dangerous... some artists spend a lifetime exploring the interactions between black and lemon yellow!"

Update: By the way, the feedback from the Yoga instructor on this series that she inspired was very positive... and, needless to say, this is giving me more fuel to keep plugging away! Merci Geneviève!

2 comments:

amber said...

Wow this series is really fantastic!! Sorry I haven't left any comments--I was taking a vacation from the computer.
These painting are full of thought nad emotion I love them :)

Ron Gravel said...

Amber, I too feel that I've managed to impart more emotion in my recent works, a function of letting go and letting music trigger my brush strokes (my background is science so I need some help to disconnect). My next step is to leverage abstraction and deconstruct a little while retaining figurative aspects... something you do well looking at the busy scene from your last post...