study – EARLY EVENING SERENITY © Sharon L Hicks, 2013

Prismacolour ... 5 x 7

At first glance, the photo reference for this study looked a bit 'mundane' ... I remembered when it was taken, just another calm peaceful early evening scene, with some pink in the sky but nothing really dramatic, like some of the other skies I've captured over the years. How would this scene translate into a painting, I wondered.

But the more I studied it, the more taken I was WITH the peaceful and serene tone of it. In another of those AHA moments, I realized that was why I had snapped the photo in the first place ... the working title became EARLY EVENING, but just as I began to think about it again to write this post, I added SERENITY to the title. I think now it states its purpose more clearly.

I've been doing some studying recently on how we choose subject matter for paintings. There are many different schools of thought out there of course, but what I've learned over the years about 'me' is that sometimes the subject matter chooses 'me'! I will see something which sometimes almost takes my breath away, and I just 'know' that I have to capture that in paint (or some kind of pigment). Like recognizing real love when it jumps into your lap, it's a 'knowing', impossible to define but nevertheless very real. There is no doubt involved, no second guessing, just an absolute certainty that this was meant to be.

I think I've mentioned before that I like to employ the concept of juxtaposition in some of my work. Bright light against dark dark. Incongruous elements placed side by side. That sort of thing. In this instance it's the very serene tone of the piece which is juxtaposed against the actual time when I captured the photo, when my life was not all that serene, I think that's probably why I was so drawn to this simple composition in the first place - it was a reminder of what my life 'could' be, and I needed to make some changes.

The reason it appeared at first glance 'now' to be rather mundane is that my life now has taken on that level of serenity I have worked for, after many changes. And so the painting becomes a symbol of 'what can be', but also 'what has become'.

And now let's take a look at the painting itself.

           My photo                         after 10 minutes                     after 1 hour

I've done a fair amount of cropping of the original image, zeroing in on one portion of the sky which has some interesting things happening in the cloud shapes and colours. The contrasts between the lightest and darkest parts of the sky have been exaggerated a bit, to add just a bit of 'zing' to the composition and prevent it from appearing too flat.

The skyline also has been varied a bit, and at the bottom left I've added a bit of hill which wasn't really there, in order to prevent the viewer's eye from migrating out of the painting at that point. The little bit of far distance which is visible in that area has been pushed back just a bit, to give more depth. Remember that photos lie as to the true colours and values, and in the photo that stretch of land is much darker and more defined than it would be in actual life. By lightening it just a wee bit it moves into the distance just a bit more.

The main focus is on the cloud shape in the lower left area - that is where your eye goes automatically. All other lines and shapes and colour gradations are designed to lead the eye back to that spot.

So that's the technical part covered, which is simply a means to an end - it's the 'how' of getting from a feeling or an idea, to the finished image. Or at least as 'finished' as a 1-hour quick study can be.

I'll be back tomorrow with another study to pick apart.

Cheers

Sharon