I Love to go A-Wandering

"I Love to go a-Wandering" - oil on cradled wood panel, 20" x 26" x 1". Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

​A week of wandering and wonder has my brain BRIMMING with ideas.  Sketch book madness over here.  But I decided to warm up for the week with a more traditional approach to abstraction, just to get back into the groove.

In this exercise, I began with a photo (see below).  What originally captured my attention here was the bright pink and green, so I knew my first order of business was to eliminate that.  "WHAT?"  You might be wondering.  Yes, obscuring the obvious eye candy made me focus on light and shadow and shape. 

Using the Notanizer app (thank you Pauline Agnew!  I love this app!), I created a value photo and voila!  Colors are gone, shapes are simplified.  

I Love to go a-Wandering

One the Notan concept is roughly sketched onto the board, I discarded both photo and Notan to work more on shapes, movement and textures.  

This is when artistic license steps in, and we use our intuition to change anything that isn't working.  In this case, bringing more darks to the front (right side) and lightening the left.

As I mulled over this process, I realized something about my own tastes.  Though I am attracted to vibrant colors and contrast, what really soothes my spirit is more muted, subtle shades and shadows.  Even in my own home, the vibrant interior vibe of my Florida house has softened into a misty, filtered Portland palette.  Because everything here is softer.  Maybe even me.