Three Tinas

"Three Tinas" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper, 22" x 15".  Ready to frame.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Another start from the Pat Dews workshop - this one with a whimsical twist!  

It began as a dark abstract, with lots of shapes that made no sense whatsoever.  During the workshop, in a dramatic move of complete frustration, I covered the entire piece with thick white gesso and began carving into it with the end of a paintbrush.  Floral shapes appeared in the etchings, and so I followed the pattern with paint.    I like the failed underpainting showing through the gesso.  The texture on this piece is rich and thick.

It must be whimsical week in the universe, as I was led to a post on the artist Tsuguharu Fujita, someone I'd never heard of.   His art  is whimsical and quirky, just as  his personality and manner of dress.  I've read he was quite successful as an artist, a testament to the popularity of whimsy even a generation ago.  A kindred spirit from the past...thanks, universe!

If we drop further into the whimsical rabbit hole, we stumble across an online magazine dedicated to whimsy and a article introducing us to some current whimsical artists.  STOP RIGHT THERE!  There is a magazine about whimsy?  Indeed!

Naive (or whimsical) art is a genre crossing continents and generations.  It is a fast growing category, which some hypothesize as a response to a world which is increasingly dark and stressful.  But what IS it exactly?  "Naive art uses childlike innocence to lighten reality" says Nirel Matsil, Naive Art Online.   Nirel further defines how naive artists accomplish this:

• Bright colors – Naïve art utilizes colors and mixed media that are not true to reality and often juxtaposed against one another.
• A childlike perspective – Naïve art often creates the illusion that objects are floating or positioned without anything solid anchoring them in place.
• Live creatures, people, and flora – The focus is almost always on animated characters and never on inanimate objects.
• Precision of detail – Naïve artists often pay very close attention to the soft borders, intense backgrounds, and fine lines of their figures and objects.

Maybe you fell asleep reading this description because you haven't had your coffee yet...perhaps a video is more your style?