study – HEAVY OVERHEAD © Sharon L Hicks

CP ... 5 x 7

I'm a huge fan of the English language, with all its twists and turns and foibles and ambiguities and vagaries. Words often have more than one meaning, which leads to two of my favourite 'word games' - puns, and the double entendre. The title of this study is one example. The term 'heavy overhead' is often used to describe the high operating costs of a business. It can suggest a threat of worsening financial situation for the business, if the costs outweigh the income. In the case of this painting, the title defines the type of clouds high in the sky - they look 'heavier' than the clouds below them, and they suggest a threat of worsening weather.

I play with words in other ways too ... sometimes I like to combine words to create a new word, especially when assigning titles to my paintings. This scene showing a typical view of the Tantramar river out on the marsh, for example, is titled TANTRAMARSH. A study of sweet peppers, done when I was trying to figure out the seemingly strong appeal of using them as subject matter, ended up providing me with a whole new perspective on these tasty crunchy goodies, and hence the title became PEPPERSPECTIVE.

left  -  TANTRAMARSH © Sharon L Hicks, 2010  ...CP ... 6 x 10

right  - PEPPERSPECTIVE © Sharon L Hicks, 2000 watercolour ... 11 x 14

But I digress ... again - I do have a tendency to do that. Back to the study at hand. Here's how it played out from photo, to cotton-ball draft, to 'finished' study. Remember that these studies are not really 'finished paintings', but they are 'finished' in the sense that this is as far as I could get in one hour.

              My photo                          after 10 minutes                        after 1 hour

This is another example of cropping the original photo to include only the part which was most important to the composition. I completely eliminated the tree on the left, and much of the bottom part of the photo. By doing this, the focus is placed on the sky itself - everything else is secondary. I also intensified parts of the cloud colours and forms, to further define and 'frame' the scene in a more artistic manner. Even the angles of the lower clouds have been adjusted slightly, to create a stronger feeling of eye movement through the composition.

Notice too that the bit of background along the bottom of the painting has been altered as well - instead of having just a flat area on the lower left side, which would tend to lead the eye out of the picture, I've added a bit of an opposing hill, which serves to direct the eye back into the scene. It's little tricks like these which make for a stronger composition.

I'm really enjoying these little studies. Working quickly, with the timer ticking away in the background, lends an air of intensity to the process, a sense of urgency to capture whatever it was that first caught my eye and led me to snap the photo in the first place. This gives the resulting studies a 'freshness', which shines through in the final image.

I'll be back tomorrow with study # 13. I hope you'll join me.

Cheers

Sharon