This week's inspiration comes from the simplified and slightly abstracted style of Milton Avery. Although not familiar with him until recently, I've become highly interested in his concentrated use of thin paint and strong colors applied in his paintings of landscapes, seascapes, figures, and more. The following four paintings stood out to me particularly for their bold color and composition with line.
Inspiration:
My Works:
Reflection:
Trying to paint in Avery's style this week was refreshing and fun for me - especially with the abstract landscape paintings! Using paint in a thin way after the thicker texture of recent weeks was a nice change of pace, and it gave me more practice with color and value.
Painting 1 -
My first painting was influenced by Hot Moon by Avery and I tried to pick unconventional colors for the sky and water as Avery did. However, I had to learn a lesson the hard way and that was the value of trusting intuition when something feels right and not second guessing my work. After painting what's pictured at first on here, I thought I could make my piece stronger even though the painting felt like it was in a good place. Therefore, I came back into it with more color and paint and it now looks like the photo on the right. Although I don't like this 'finished' version nearly as much as the first, it was a good experience in learning how important it is to trust my instinct in the future!
Painting 2 -
This second painting felt better as I simplified a landscape based off of a photo and tried to choose a strong color scheme to work with. I appreciated that in Pale Field, Dark Mountain, Avery used a simple color theme with various shades to strengthen his composition and was attempting to do this one piece in a similar manner.
Painting 3 -
After liking the direction of my second painting and studying Avery's piece, Rocks and Sea, I tried to do another painting in the same way. The composition and color scheme of this artist's landscape painting inspired me to do a similar theme which brought me to this more vibrant and simplified end product...
Painting 4 -
Milton Avery's Grazing Brahmin painting inspired this final piece. I loved how simple the composition was with the abstracted form of the animals and wanted to imitate this in a more developed landscape than my previous two paintings. Although I don't think it's the strongest piece, it helped to simplify my color scheme and play with value of color while placing a few other loose alpaca forms into the composition.
Overall -
This week taught me the beauty of simplified form and color. Although my first painting didn't end in a way I was super satisfied with, it taught me about Avery's style. The next two landscapes though were a fun change of pace with a focus on color and shape while my fourth painting was more of a play on composition. Avery's style was a very different type of abstraction than de Kooning's work from the previous week but fun to try out!