Czech Mill
Watercolor on 140# Arches CP
Size: W. 16" x H. 12" (Unframed)
Date: November 21, 2009
Price: $600 (unframed)
ARTIST COMMENT
Here's the deal. In my view most of the creativity (at least 60%) is in the hard work of locating the image to paint. I spend more time trying to find a panorama that inspires me than I do in the painting. Almost all of my images are my own. I mean I find them for myself. This may mean that it is a picture that other people have done (like the Fish House at Rockport, MA, apparently the most photographed scene in the United States) but it was mine. I was there. I took the picture so it is my discovery.
So often I have entered competitions where those that have won the show took the image out of a magazine. When artists fail to compete according to the rules then unfortunately the results are skewed for everyone, artist and viewer alike.
In the case of the "Czech Mill" the image is not mine. I took it right down from Flickr. It's a snap taken by a Canadian (formerly a Czech) who now lives in Ottawa. I am also from Ottawa, Canada.
I attempted to enhance the color without becoming too comic book. This is one of the hazards of using intense color. If one is not careful the result can appear stilted, even "cartoonish" if you will.
This is a "busy" picture with lots of windows and textures, brick, shingles, stone, foliage, water so it is no easy task to pull this off and manage to keep the feel of integration where one area feels connected to another on the opposite side of the page.
Czech Mill
Watercolor on 140# Arches CP
Size: W. 16" x H. 12" (Unframed)
Date: November 21, 2009
Price: $600 (unframed)
ARTIST COMMENT
Here's the deal. In my view most of the creativity (at least 60%) is in the hard work of locating the image to paint. I spend more time trying to find a panorama that inspires me than I do in the painting. Almost all of my images are my own. I mean I find them for myself. This may mean that it is a picture that other people have done (like the Fish House at Rockport, MA, apparently the most photographed scene in the United States) but it was mine. I was there. I took the picture so it is my discovery.
So often I have entered competitions where those that have won the show took the image out of a magazine. When artists fail to compete according to the rules then unfortunately the results are skewed for everyone, artist and viewer alike.
In the case of the "Czech Mill" the image is not mine. I took it right down from Flickr. It's a snap taken by a Canadian (formerly a Czech) who now lives in Ottawa. I am also from Ottawa, Canada.
I attempted to enhance the color without becoming too comic book. This is one of the hazards of using intense color. If one is not careful the result can appear stilted, even "cartoonish" if you will.
This is a "busy" picture with lots of windows and textures, brick, shingles, stone, foliage, water so it is no easy task to pull this off and manage to keep the feel of integration where one area feels connected to another on the opposite side of the page.