Wednesday, January 30, 2013

My Haystack

Artists always enjoy revisiting a familiar scene or subject. Finding new ways to look at and express the themes within the familiar subject. I always think of Monet's countless haystacks when I think of this. (Can't think how many of those I've seen over the years, but a lot - and all beautiful).

Possibly my version of this, is going back to old paintings and their reference material and doing new versions of them. The 1st version of this painting was painted in '08 I think and it sold long ago. This is my second version of that set up. I wonder how many more I will produce in my painting life time? I know what I'd do the next time I painted it too!

The green group revisited
24X36               Acrylic on board

The original had a very cool tone to it with strong blues and lots of greens, I've kept faithful to that. Though I wanted to readdress the balance of the painting, (the original had all plants and vases, pushed to the left hand side), so I moved one of the plants to the other side of the table. An artist should always be moving things within their view, to strength the paintings composition. When I teach workshops I encourage artists to stand slightly 'off view', or slightly misplace their still life objects. This forces them to think and move elements within their composition. This process I feel keeps the art fluid and avoids us getting to lazy. Composition is so important to get right, we need to always be aware of it!


* I know I should have posted an image of the original painting here too. But I wanted the new work to stand on it's own merits and not be simply compared to it's counterpart.

1 comment:

  1. Angus,
    your paintings are so beautiful. I am one of your biggest fans.

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