Thursday, September 12, 2013

Evolution of a Painting

Earlier in the summer, I took a wonderful online class from Diane Culhane, " Between Speech and Silence." I'm planning to blog more about that course in a separate post. In this post, I'm going to show how two of the paintings evolved during the creative process.

Our goal in the paintings was to suggest a story or dialog by including figures. The beauty of this concept is that story is open to interpretation by the viewer. I love creating mystery in my work and this is a fun new way to accomplish that goal. Here is an early version of one of my paintings.



After setting it aside for a few days, I decided that the face was OK, but too big and heavy for the rest of the painting. So instead of the face, I added another bird. It's much more balanced and whimsical to to me now. I wonder what these two birds are saying to each other, don't you? 




This is another painting from the course, again following the idea of creating dialog with figures.



The more I looked at this one, the less happy I felt about it. I decided I didn't like the girl so much, and I wanted to create more interest with the tree. It felt like a children's book illustration to me, which isn't a bad thing, but it wasn't what I really was aiming for. I added some more collage and replaced the girl with an image transfer.




It's so much different now! Overall, I am very happy with the tree, but still not so sure if the bird and face 'go together.' But it's been good to try out the idea of creating a story in my work -- definitely a new concept for me, but a fun way to push myself in a new direction.


12 comments:

  1. oh love these and your colour pallette!!! beautiful work!!!!

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  2. That is so interesting how different the paintings look with the little changes you made. Your colors are beautiful. I actually like the befores as well as the afters. It's good you made photos of them.

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  3. Oh I think they were all great, before and after. Nice work.
    gloria

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  4. Hi Debbie, I agree that they look good before and after. They all came from beautiful creativity source which is you and also they represent your mood and emotions change at the same time. inpiring. Thank you for sharing.

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  5. Hello Debbie it's been great coming here and looking at all your art, so interesting! I love your pieces and how you push yourself in different directions, your paintings have turned out great! Keep on with the fun!

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  6. It was fascinating to see how your painting evolved. The tree and bird are definitely my favorite elements of your beautiful final piece. Blessings!

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  7. It's amazing to see the process of evolution in each picture! And I think every single step is very beautiful in it's own, unique way. :)

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  8. like the blue deer and the coloured leaves..happy ppf

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  9. like the blue deer and the coloured leaves..happy ppf

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  10. I love to see how you have changed the paintings! I really liked both versions of both paintings, but I think you have done an amazing job with changing the paintings!
    Kirstin x

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  11. It's interesting to see that you are prepared to change areas of your pictures if you are not happy with them, and very brave. I liked all versions, and each one tells a different story. Your course is working well because I always love to 'read' a story in an artwork, and yours start ideas going in my mind about what the characters are saying to each other.

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  12. Each painting before and after) is beautiful in its own way. It's very interesting to see the way you have gone about these two paintings.

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