Tag Archives: acrylic on canvas

Color Field Painting

Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to abstract expressionism. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes, and action in favor of an overall consistency of form and process. If you saw my post last week, you know that I painted a rather intense orange painting. The style of the painting is called color field. This week after working with orange, I wanted to give my brain a new challenge and work in all grays. Although there may be forms or shapes that are recognizable to some people, all colors were made from mixtures of red, blue, and yellow plus white and black. The colors changed by adding more red in some areas, for example, and more blue in others. There are even touches or green made in the same manner.

After spending some time on the painting, I think that all of the gray is a little monotonous and may need to be made a little more intense. I do, however, like to gray down my work. So let’s say that this painting is not finished. Suggestions are welcome. You may see it again if you are on my newsletter list. You won’t see it in another post because I have decided to give my blog a rest for a while. I want to concentrate on my newsletter which will go out monthly. I will be posting my new work on my website as I finish a piece and I always love comments. If you are not getting my newsletter, you can sign up by contacting me and leaving your email address. There will soon be a sign-up page on my website.

Thank you to all of my readers, especially those who continually took the time to share their comments.

How Many Variations of Orange Can I Mix?

I have just completed the second week in my abstract painting class. Last week I posted a painting done in many hues of green. One of the suggestions that the teacher makes is to challenge yourself and use colors, tools, marks, shapes and images that we have not used before.

For the last several months I have been painting Ireland which means that I used mostly greens and blues. They are cool paintings like the country—lot of grass and water everywhere.

So this week I did a painting with as many oranges as I could mix. I didn’t give a lot of thought of how to vary oranges, I just mixed tints: tones, and shades of orange with a touch of magenta thrown into different places on the painting. There is no way that I could have done an orange painting without somehow reducing the intensity of color.

The Language of the Sun, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 x 3/4 inches. Ann Hart Marquis

Speaking of magenta, when it is mixed with cadmium yellow, an interesting warm orange develops. It is one of many interesting variations of orange.

Another objective on this painting was not to include a horizon line. Since I used a 30×30-inch canvas, I had a lot of canvas to cover with this interesting and challenging color.

Here is a link to an orange color chart that demonstrates the variations of orange that can be created. I am not sure where their names came from, but it is interesting to view.

I particularly liked Coquelicot, which is the French name for the red-orange flower that grows all over France. The color Cinereous is interesting also. So much to learn.

Of course, I then had to investigate the symbolic meaning of orange. “Orange aids in the assimilation of new ideas and frees the spirit of its limitations, giving us the freedom to be ourselves. At the same time it encourages self-respect and respect of others.

Orange is probably the most rejected and under-used color of our time. However, young people do respond well to it as it has a degree of youthful impulsiveness to it.”

Who knew! I thought

This week I think I will go with gray to try to calm down my impulsiveness.

Impasto Paint and My Big Palette Knife

If you read my post from last week, you know that I started taking an abstract painting class. Part of the class includes critique, so students can bring in pieces that they are working on for feedback from the teacher. Also, at the end of the class we all got together and critiqued each other’s work.

It was a very helpful process especially to be able to bring my work and say “what does this need.” Fortunately, the piece that was on my post last week got good feedback from the teacher.

She said it was almost finished and just need two swipes of thicker paint, almost like an impasto. I like to paint thickly especially with my palette knife. I am now trying a very large palette knife about 2 1/2 inches wide and 6 inches long. Needless to say, it can cover a lot of canvas.

She suggested that it be in the same color as what was already on the canvas. That was not too difficult a challenge except mixing paint to the exact color as I did several days previously, always takes patience.

The Nature of Water and Air, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 x 1.5 inches. Ann Hart Marquis

I also started a new painting in class that I almost completely painted over once I got home. I was trying to follow her discussion and suggestions without listening to how I wanted to paint.

Next week, I think that I can incorporate her suggestions and still stay true to myself.

Artist Critique Group

If you read my blog with any kind of regularity, you know that I sometimes think a painting is finished, live with it awhile and then decide that it has some kind of major problem. I have just come to the point on the painting below that it is time to just stop and take a long look at it before proceeding.

Untitled- Ireland, acrylic on canvas, 24x30x1.5 inches. ©Ann Hart Marquis

Fortunately, next week I start an abstract painting class where I can work on what I want including getting feedback from the teacher Janet Bothne. If I feel stuck or think that I don’t know what to do next, I can get advice. So this class sounds perfect for me.

In addition, this class includes a critique time with the whole class where I can get or give feedback. I have been looking for an artist critique group for several years. I am excited about the idea that other people will be giving me opinions about my work.

I have friends who do not like to have their work critiqued. According to artist and blogger Sharon Hicks, “Some artists cringe at the mere thought of having their work critiqued. The very word ‘critique’ is based on the word ‘criticism’, and in our culture that word has taken on a negative connotation, since to criticize something usually means to point out its faults.”

According to the dictionary, however, the word critic derives from the idea of someone who judges, evaluates, or analyzes literary or artistic works, dramatic or musical performances. To me this is a neutral statement. Ideally a critic can give both positive and negative responses. It relates to the idea of useful criticism.

For me, good and useful criticism serves one purpose: to give the creator of the work more perspective and help them make their next set of choices. I like the idea of having a set of choices.

I am also open to critique right now. If anyone has ideas of where this painting needs to go next, I would be delighted to hear them.

History of a Painting: The Many Lives of One Canvas

I finished a painting this week that I have been working on for a while. It has had many lives. Here is some the history of a painting.

Ann Hart Marquis painting showing history of a painting.

All Legendary Obstacles, acrylic on canvas, 24x30x1.5 inches

As some of you know, I sometimes think that I am finished with a painting and feel comfortable about presenting it to the world, or whoever is looking at my work.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a small study I did for a larger piece. I liked the way it looked and proceeded to start a somewhat large 24×30-inch canvas inspired by the small painting.

painting study showing the history of a painting

Ireland Study, acrylic on canvas, 8×10-inches.

I finished it and I thought it was interesting. I displayed it. I lived with it about two weeks and then I started to analyze why it was not making me happy. The problem was then glaring. What were all of the rose forms at the bottom of the painting and why did it look so stiff and out of sync with the series it belonged to?

First Rose of Spring, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 x 1.5 inches

I knew something was going to have to change in a big way—the bottom of the painting. I studied it again and decided that the middle of the painting had some interesting aspects and I liked the colors that I had used.

So what to do? Turn it upside down? That’s what I did. I added some yellow accents. I then painted over the rose color which was at the top with a gray-blue. I didn’t like that and by now I had so much paint on that section of the canvas that the texture looked out of place.

I was not going to give up. I called on the assistance of an art lover who had much more arm muscle than me to sand down the top of the painting. He did a great job and now I had a smooth surface again.

Stage 4 after sanding

Now what color to paint the sky? This time I choose a tint of Naples yellow and created a transparent glaze with a gloss medium. I painted the sky letting the gloss dry for a day before adding a second and third layer of paint. By then about five days had gone by.

A few days ago I decided the yellow in the middle made the painting too cool so I dragged some red oxide chalk over the yellow, wiped most of it off, and sealed it with gloss medium. Finished!

I have started on my next painting which looks like it goes with the series. I will see how it progresses.

Romantic Painter

I am a romantic painter. I have found definitions of “romantic” such as a sensibility; primitivism; love of nature; sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval; mysticism; individualism.

I am also sentimental. Webster defines someone who is sentimental as a person excessively prone to feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.

That brings me to nostalgia. I am nostalgic and find myself attracted to the Irish notion of a gentle melancholy that permeates life. While I reflect on Ireland and my Irish paintings, I am also thinking about why I am drawn to certain subjects, places, or ideas.

Such thoughts drew me to one of the first paintings that I ever did. I was on a painting retreat in France with no experience at all. Each day we would be driven to some exquisite location to paint. We would arrive and scatter, painting whatever we were drawn to. One could have chosen a lovely view, goats, a forest and other people.

Ruins was done by romantic painter Ann Hart Marquis

Ruins, acrylic on canvas, 11×14 inches.

I wandered around and found a three story 19^th century home that was in ruins. What happened to this house, I wondered. Why didn’t this seemingly once lovely place undergo repairs? What was its story? Of course, that was what I decided to paint.

I have learned that I am drawn to emotions and events that I perceive may exist or have existed. That is one reason that I am drawn to Ireland and spent so many years in France. I was and am enchanted by the history, the way people lived, the myths, the beauty of both structures and raw nature.

I think that the classical definition of all of the above can be summarized to this description:

The Romantic embodied “a new and restless spirit, seeking to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate individual effort at self-assertion, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals.

I especially like the part about unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals. If I ever get a clear idea of what those goals are, I will let you know.

Mark-Making

This past week I was in Phoenix, AZ attending Art Unraveled, a creative week of workshops and an art retreat that takes place every year. I always like to take workshops and classes. It helps me to grow as a painter when I can be inspired by new ideas. It is an adventure for me.

I spent my time taking classes from the abstract artist Joan Fullerton. Her style was fun, interesting, and effective. It is her belief that “abstract art encourages the imagination to run free. Inner and outer worlds collide making a space for new awareness to grow.”

Joan taught several mark-making and layering techniques that were what I was hoping for. We worked in mixed media which included acrylic paint and medium, acrylic paint pens, oil pastel, charcoal and ink. Each work started with random mark-making. We then used our materials to create whatever inspired us.

Abstract 2, mixed media on canvas, 14 x 18 inches, 2015. ©Ann Hart Marquis

I worked on stretched canvas and watercolor paper. The paintings above and below are on stretched canvas. They both developed rather quickly, in about 1½ hours. They may be finished, but I never know when a painting is done until I have lived with it for a while.

They seem a little busy to me. What do you think?

Painting for the Complete Beginner, Summer

This past Thursday was the last summer class of my University of New Mexico, Continuing Education class, Painting for the Complete Beginner. It was an enjoyable and fun class for me to teach. I enjoyed seeing how far students had come in such a short period of time. I was so impressed by how the new painters took their tasks seriously and worked so hard. Most did homework on their own and many finished paintings at home that were started in class.

Red Grapes, Patricia Lowrey, 2014

They started the class with just three colors: Cadmium Red and Yellow and Cobalt Blue plus white and black acrylic paint. The first night they experimented with color mixing, then I gave them each a lemon to paint, which was challenging for some, successful for all. In the following classes they were free to paint whatever they wanted.

Hawaiian Flowers, Deborah Maestas, 2014

At the end of the last class we displayed all available paintings that had been done. I think the painters were quite proud of themselves and somewhat surprised at how far they had come in 12-hours of instruction time. I was certainly proud of them.

Autumn Birch Trees, Linda Faust, 2014

Pretty in Blue, Jeannette D. Sanchez, 2014

Yellow Rose, Betty Gatton, Spring, 2014

Painting for the Complete Beginner II

Here are some additional paintings from my class at the University of New Mexico, Continuing Education, Painting for the Complete Beginner that ended last week. As you can see the work is quite diverse and quite good for new painters.

African Sculpture. Mark Koson, 2014

Clay Pot. Mark Koson , 2014

All of these paintings were done with the greatest care and diligence. It was such a pleasure to see students learn beginning techniques and then to create such interesting and inspiring pieces. I hope that they all continue with their painting experience. They should. There certainly was talent in the group.

Mac. Vanessa Gonzales, 2014

Twin Towers, Gone But Not Forgotten. Linda Faust, 2014

Crow. Jane Nelson, 2014

Untitled. David Robbins, 2014

My next class starts the first Thursday in June and I get to experience the fun of playing with color and shape again with many more hard-working artists.