Friday, November 7, 2008

A Summer Day and Fish

I wanted to revisit the place of the earlier A Summer Day painting, and I did. I have to wander further, but I like the stronger use of colors in this one. As always, the camera takes much of the warmth of the painting, making it too blue, and it removes most of the subtlety of color and shading. You also miss the way forms get some reflected color (deliberately added) from neighboring shapes. Green in the sky, rose and yellows glowing from nearby objects. But this gives the gist.

One of my favorite things is the division at the bottom between the reds and oranges in the left and the blues on the right, with the lollipop tree trunk dividing them. I also really like the shadow of the tree in the lower center, and how it plays with the other shapes of the hill behind it. And, of course, the orange fish in the sky. I really wish our skies were filled with schools of fish, as if we lived in a huge fish bowl.

This painting did not begin with lines of something else - this one grew on the page from the trees at the bottom, and the dandelion leaves (which I wanted to re-use from the earlier painting, along with the bee).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The purple fish on the road gave me a giggle.

Unknown said...

They seem like flying fish but I am wonder where they're flying to.

Unknown said...

wondering - I am typing challenged.

susan said...

That really is a pretty and very dreamlike image. Your colors sing.

L'Adelaide said...

I love the hill in back of the lollipops and the fish and and and....your colors do sing, they are coming across bright and true on my monitor, something I never seem to be able to do in my photos....it's even worse with acrylics, I've noticed, and I drove myself nuts taking a picture of the tree...I am anxious to get back to my watercolors....

so this is another wonderful painting, as always! I so love your work :) have a good weekend!

Steve Emery said...

DCup and MathMan - My kids look for these fish in my paintings. They're not hard to find - not like all the cats in "Cats and Koi" which contains 11 cats, if I recall correctly. But they always like to know they're there. I think my little watercolor Navis is the first one that had fish in the sky.

Susan - thank you. The color is my favorite, and I feel like I learn a little bit more in each painting.

Linda - I've noticed that the acrylics don't seem to photograph as brightly as the watercolors. Not sure why - it is annoying. Thanks for the compliments. I want to get deeper into this dreamy place - I feel like this is just the beginning, and I'm not nearly far enough along the road back to my artistic childhood. I hope your weekend is lovely, and I'll come visit your blog soon.