I guess there’s something to be said for making sure the drawing is just right before applying paint,” explains Witbeck. “However, my brain doesn’t seem to work that way. I tend to find the painting through trial and error on the canvas.”
Tag: Artist Insights
Making a Landscape Come to Life – Artist R Scott Baltz
“It starts when something in the landscape speaks to me. It may be a very small thing, instead of something grand,” says Baltz. “Maybe it is just the way the light hits the tree or something that stands out as being a little unusual. So often I find it deeply, movingly so, beautiful.”
My Birds – Insight From Artist David Jacobson
My goal is to capture the gesture of the bird. It’s its essence. I am not concerned with details of the eyes or feathers, for example—more, of the form of flight. My recent wall piece of assembled birds of various colors at Maine Art Hill is a good example of what I am after. Each bird is interesting, in and of its self, and together forms a more intricate sculpture. The birds are placed in a formation that is influenced by observed birds in flight. Angling up, lifting off, soaring. Actual colorings influence the birds’ patterns and colors, but the birds are representational of actual birds.
Artist R Scott Baltz, The Process of Change
“I had worked in watercolor for many years. And I felt another transition coming. I was ready to move on to something meatier, something with a more tactile quality, perhaps another medium,” Scott says. “As it turns out, that medium was oil paint.”
Intaglio and Viscosity Printing with Artist Julie Houck
These prints are still one of a kind works, just produced in a manner very different from her landscape work.
A Piece of Quiet – Artist Insights from Liz Hoag
“Though sometimes it’s hard to focus on complex tasks when thoughts of what’s going on outside these walls swirl in my head, I have managed to quietly create,” shares Hoag. “The creamy feel of paint on a brush and the unexpected success of an even a tiny section of a painting that feels just perfect makes my days.”
A Change of Focus – Artist Insights from Julie Houck
“I am inspired by the interplay of light on the landscape, which is ever elusive and always changing,” shares Houck. “Painting softly allows me the opportunity to recreate that one particularly special moment when the land, light, and atmosphere seamlessly fuse.”
A Painter’s Place: Among the Sea, Sky and Wind – Insights from Claire Bigbee
The horizon line in my paintings establishes a point of reference to create distance. I use dramatic scale and color to create depth rather than value transitions. This flattens the picture plane, so color relationships create a luminous visual harmony.
Heirlooms in Bloom – Insights from Ingunn Milla Joergensen
“When my great grandmother Milla married in early the 1900s, she received from her parents’ garden this beautiful peony plant,” explains Joergensen. “It was passed down through the generations and finally given to me.”
Less is So Much More – Artist Insights from Jill Matthews
“My paintings have always been a representation of how I interpret the world,” Matthews explains. “My pieces hint at an exaggeration of simplicity. The process is often a removal of unnecessary elements, leaving strength to what remains.”