#DARK WOODS PAINTING SERIES#

I have so much white furniture, blondish wood floors in parts of my house and white woodwork, my house can handle some dark pieces to ground things a bit. I happen to love eclectic styles and contrasts between light and dark, so a few darker wood pieces work for me in the overall mix of my home’s decor. It all depends on the room, the styling and what other pieces you have in your home! You don’t have to have all light furniture and walls to accomplish a lighter feel in a home. You can definitely overdo dark wood and end up with a dreary outdated home, of course, but I believe you can lighten and brighten your style in many ways and still keep some dark pieces. And I’ve painted furniture white too, like my table! I’m not anti-painting, obviously. I painted this little formerly wood table blue a couple of years ago and it has been happier ever since. Of course, just because I’m still a fan of wood doesn’t mean I always keep it natural wood. There should be room for all of us to live with our own style and unique homes. While I agree that all light and tone-on-tone rooms are certainly pretty in a picture (they do tend to photograph well) there are many of us that still love color and contrasts between white and wood in our own homes. If you wish to join me contact the Silvermine School of Art at 2 ext 2.I have had quite a few confessions from readers in the past year sharing that while they love photos of white rooms and painted white cabinets, many actually live with more wood, contrast and color. I am off to paint and photograph the woods, streams, waterfalls, meadows and White Mountains of New Hampshire in September. Kathryn Poch, Wind, oil on anodized aluminum. Kathryn Poch, Coral Discovery, oil on anodized aluminum.Įxample 6. Curvilinear forms suggest motion, a turning motion as well as volume.Įxample 5. In example 6 Kathryn keeps us spinning as we revolve around a blue copse of trees. The effects has us feeling a landscape revolve around a motif, all evolving, all in motion. She then places a vertically aspiring collection of shapes in its center. In example 5 Kathryn flattens and foreshortens a circle into a disc form. She bends her triangles even more severely. Kathryn Poch (examples 5 and 6) uses triangles and circles. Janine Robertson, Meandering Stream, oil on copper.Īll three of these artists used curving or bending triangles to give them more dynamic forms with a greater suggestion of motion. Janine Robertson, sky and meadow, oil on metal.Įxample 4. Janine gives us an example of a fundamental application of the zig zag to invite the viewer in.Įxample 3. The serpentine design is simplyl a stack of two opposing triangles, a softened letter “Z” or “S”. We step over the dark threshold to get to the light. Notice Janine uses the dark foreground as an effective threshold device to encourage the viewer to move back toward the light. In Janine’s vertical composition she relies on a serpentine trail of spotted lights within a darkened foreground.

She also laterally runs triangles in opposition to one another which you see diagrammed in example 3a. Janine Robertson (examples 3, 3a, and 4) stacks a triangle of clouds over an echoing triangle shape of trees which can be seen on the right side of the meadow.

#DARK WOODS PAINTING SERIES#

In his woodland painting Paul takes us back through a series of triangles within triangles each varied in size, inclination, and description of edges.Įxample 2. The falls also assume a triangular shape. With his waterfall he guides us back and up the steps of the falls.

Observe in both examples Paul inclines the outlying tree forms into an off-center triangle. His palette appears warm because of his use of transparent red oxide (iron oxide). Working within a square format Paul organizes his plein air experience by relying on the triangle as a foundation. Let’s begin with Paul (examples 1 and 2). Their works reveal shared design forms coupled to personal invention. Paul Gala, Kathryn Poch, and Janine Robertson were three of 21 artists joining me in the Catskills. But our personal stories (paintings) reveal our unique use of that alphabet, vocabulary and story form. We share design forms just as we share the letters of the alphabet, similar vocabularies, and even similar story forms.

Artists accompanying me in the Catskills gave different visions but shared similar design structures. Artists look at the same material and create different visions.

Dark woods painting