GAINING FOCUS

I feel very lucky!
I’m taking a portrait workshop with Lynn Powers, an amazing artist and skillful teacher. Perhaps she absorbed some of her skill growing up with mom, artist Jan Kuntz, or producing art videos with Creative Catalyst. Lynn has definitely found her own unique voice and it is fascinating to work with her.

Here’s a recent portrait of hers…
A WOMAN OF COLOR

See more of Lynn’s work at Gallery Calapooia in Albany.

Or, Lynn’s WEB SITE


















Lynn said I could share the homework assignment from the first day of class.


A. CHOOSE THREE OF MY PAINTINGS THAT I LOVE.
They can be any subject or style.

I used these three:

 
B. NAME THREE ELEMENTS OR PRINCIPALS OF DESIGN THAT ARE BASIC TO THE PAINTINGS.
Analyze them and be specific. This will help in discovering what is driving your work.

Here are mine..
1. PATTERNING: Sometimes intricately painted, sometimes marbled — all my favorite paintings have repetitive shapes that give texture to my work.

2. COLOR: I love the play of warm to cool color, often using invented or exaggerated color. Notice the predominant use of the secondary color palette.

3. VALUE (Light/Shadow): Pushing the value range is something I’ve worked on, using subjects that are lit to create shapes in the highlights and shadows.

C. WHAT IS IT I WANT FROM MY ART, OR TO COMMUNICATE WITH MY ART?

This required a bit of pondering.

I want my work to be unique and distinctive — to convey my own personal vision — to interpret and not simply record.

I want to playfully weave looseness into the rendering of my subjects.

I want my art to have ambiguity and mystery — to leave something to the imagination or elicit questions in the viewer.

I want it to be evocative — to move others.

So I was pretty happy with these thoughts. Never before have I had such a clear “MISSION STATEMENT” of what I want to achieve in my work.

Talking it over with my husband over breakfast, he said I should add just one thing…
            a subliminal message, imparting an unconscious desire to buy the art!
Hey, why not?