Category Archives: water

2018 Photography and Art in Review, art, art, artbygordon, Articles on travel, Articles on travel, artwork, blogging, clarity, creative design, creativity, design, emotion, emotional, emotional, exploring, gardening, graphics, hope, illustration, illustrator, inspiration, learning, nature, nature photos, oil painting, oils, oklahoma, outdoors, painiting, painting, photographer, photography, photoshop, relaxation, teaching new, travel, understanding, water, Waterfalls

Back to the Canvas: Rediscovering water and the simple intricacies of light

Turner Falls Oklahoma Original Oil on Canvas Artbygordon 2018

Back to the Canvas- got back to the canvas yesterday and found my purpose for water. The problem with water or even capturing images realistically is seeing and capturing the basic element of the image.

To Truly See: Getting back to Details

After you’ve truly seen and conveyed the basic idea, the essence of water with temperature and depth, then you can stray from the reality of the colors and even the perspective.

Intention: What is the Basic Premise

It all depends on intention, my intention is always to see the depth and clarity of water first, after that I can express the place or time and I’ve succeeded in the whole reason I started painting water in the first place.

What has happened recently is a loss of conveying the details. Waterfalls end up looking like flows of hair or cotton and the water clarity and depth instead takes on a nondescript study of color.

Petit Jean Arkansas: Original Oil on Canvas Artbygordon 2018

The Shift: To Truly See

There is a point where I can push color back and forth without truly seeing but with any luck there is the shift, where the subconscious remembers what it knows.

This is what happened yesterday, suddenly the brush moves with little consciousness from the artist-it’s like all the forms and strokes are already there.

It is almost an out-of-body experience because the hand the brush, even the colors and the forms tend to paint themselves. I’ve experienced this with writing too and it is an amazing place that no artist wants to leave.

The Fisherman: 2018 Original Oil on Canvas, Artbygordon-work in progress

New Elements in Recent Works

I’m not sure if it’s because of shooting so much graphic photography but recently I have more intention on form and contrast of light. The actually scene is secondary to the relationship of the elements and the contrast of light.

There are many ways to show depth and perspective, this is just one more option and I’m really beginning to see a shift in my work overall as elements supersede or at least complement mood.

Lake Texoma: Original Oil on Canvas Artbygordon 2018
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Naturally Graphic available at Fine Art America

Naturally Graphic – Images are available on Fine Art America. Working on adding to a large inventory of abstract nature images that will be available soon.

Milkweed plant abstract print available on Fine Art America

Red Photinia Abstract print available on Fine Art America

 

Autumn Pond abstract available on Fine Art America

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Abstractions of Nature – Contemporary Art for Home and Office

Artbygordon abstractions of nature become art for home and office: Naturally Graphic

Abstractions of Nature – I love the patterns in nature. As an artist, finding a unique perspective that can show a viewer something they might not have seen before is a large part of my artistic intent.

I have always painted landscapes and seascapes but I could never perfect what is already real. I am competing with the greatest artist of them all: God. All I can hope for is to show the viewer an aspect of that image that moved me and perhaps move the viewer with the same or varied feeling.

As I have been photographing more regularly, I have found the need to see deeper than just the landscape. Especially when the light does not cooperate with the subject or doesn’t show up at all.

I learned to isolate parts of nature when my desire to photograph didn’t lend itself to the light of the day. On a gray winter day, when there is nothing but flat, bland light and no objects are discernible by any effective modeling,  I have discovered a new way of seeing the landscape.

I started seeing how images were painted by stray bits of light. Suddenly instead of a bland landscape, I was able to find just a piece of that landscape that could be a graphic object. I don’t even care if the final image is discernible, it is more the aspect of its abstract nature that intrigues me.

modern interior room with a beautiful furniture

I have started gathering autumn leaves, green leaves and patterns in water, in the past I would  have struggled to find something in abstract but now the image jumps out at me. It’s a muscle and to strengthen this way of seeing the landscape has changed my whole outlook on contemporary art.

I believe that bringing nature into the house can evoke a calm center as well as a conversation piece for visitors. I like how without representing a specific subject, the image evokes something without trying too hard to be abstract or artsy. I have found my way to the abstract and contemporary subject.

 

Interiors are from Adobe Stock-Photographic art Artbygordon

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Artwork Analysis

Artwork Analysis – On a weekly basis I will chose a painting that has gotten some attention and explain the process in which it was created. Most of my paintings are actual images that I envision-the colors, the theme and the basic location. All elements are added from different places around a general area, a main focus is set which captures the overall mood and the peripheral elements add the overall texture and assist in strengthening the main focus of the final image.

I am amazed by water, the reflections, the clarity and the sound. I visited the Cascades in New Hampshire and I was hooked. The Cascade images I’ve included are of some of the seven or so waterfalls I followed all the way to the top of a mountain. I have a need for the viewer to feel the coldness of the water that’s why the images are darker and the brighter colors play off the dark blues. I want you to be able to see the rocks beneath the water and feel like you can walk in. These waterfalls were all done during a darker phase in my painting, I have since gotten a much more vibrant palette. While I was painting this series I was surrounded by waterfalls as I built them in my studio-I had several waterfalls in tanks so the sound was always around as I painted.

I use photographs to get a basic feel for the image but all images were created from careful observations of water, both on the site of the waterfalls or in similar areas locally. I study the light and why each area of the water looks the way it looks. I have narrowed the idea down to a basic full mirror of the sky and remaining images, that mirror is than broken by the movement of the water and the play and direction of the light. All the colors are affected by the angle of the sun and the distance from the viewer. I have many notes on all different aspects of water that allow me to create water that looks like it’s moving and looks like it is transparent. In the future I plan on painting more paintings using multiple layering as opposed to the wet on wet I have employed in the past.

My next blog will be on teaching art. I have recently taught a class on painting and it has changed the way I paint because it forces the teacher to see painting differently and verbalize what is usually an instinctual process.

Check out my latest blog: As of 2021