Life is just a bowl of....

Eat Your Broccoli   watercolor   13.25 x 6.5

let's see...we had spools of thread, bok choi, fruit and my own response, broccoli.  In this case I was working on an unusually shaped scrap of paper.  I wanted the darks and lights to play against each other to create drama.  And....I had the green/violet combo in my brain.  The tops of each floret are a kind of bluish-whitish-greenish.  Millions of little pieces.  The goal:  to indicate broccoli without too much detail.

"Eat Your Broccoli" is my response.

High Drama

Early One Lemon Morning   watercolor/gouache   12.5 x 19.5

Paintings are like great music.....they can evoke different moods by the way in which an artist "plays" the value scales. The arrival of Spring and more sunlight allow for drama to unfold in the visual. Strong light (from one light source) creates strong shadow areas. Those visuals that utilize both ends of the value scale spectrum are indeed dramatic in mood. I liken them to a musician who plays loud feverish passages in combination with softer sound passages for the same effect. It definitely captures our attention. "Early one Lemon Morning" was painted many years ago from photos that I took this time of year, as the amount and quality of light entering our dining room window changed dramatically from what we had been seeing during the winter. At that time of my life, I more appreciated the dramatic than the sublime in my work. Dark, dark shadows. Sparkling lights. Not so much middle ground. More easily read from a distance. This painting is in the collection of The Parkersburg Art Center (WV).