Autumn Cascade

The delights of an autumn meadow lay in the opportunities for finding designs whether close up or  panorama.  A superabundance of opposing currents of flora create interlocking patterns. The artist’s problem is one of simplification and distillation. How do we find an order here and how do we disguise that order to sustain a feeling of  nature’s unified chaos. How do we get nature’s chaotic orchestra to play from the same score?

Composing works well when we selectively crop,  with or without a camera.  First frame a section of chaos then, find  major and minor movements exhibiting dynamic contrasts. Prune away distracting suspicious coincidences and redundancies. Exaggerate curves, thematic shapes, value and color contrasts.

Let’s look John Constable’s approach to reordering major shapes of  the sea and sky in his preliminary oil study  (example 1).  Observe that he selected a long rectangular format to extend the flow of the horizon.  Observe how the shoreline and cloud-lines converge forming an arrow-like shape. This is only his initial study.  He will borrow  ideas from his studies to inform later paintings or, he may continue to tune the study up by making the cloud-lines appear less rigid.

I thought you might like to see one of John Constable’s studies, his first steps. Example 2 presents a finished painting of Constable’s.  See how he used a similar design but now, he  refined it with more curvature.  He has  the sky  turn and flip back on itself so the viewer remains within the picture. I superimposed red lines demonstrating the sky and land’s new curvilinear relationship.

example 1. Constable study.

example 2. Constable exhibition painting.
 

I  use a similar design composing a meadow image.  Example 3 shows my  cropped photo with superimposed red lines describing an arch moving across the painting. The movement is similar to Constable’s cloud study but, more curved. Example 4 shows  you my initial lay-in. My palette included Gamboge, Carmine Lake, Ultramarine Blue, Lemon Yellow, and a touch of vermillion. I applied and blended the paint using  a soft flat 8″wide brush. Example 5 presents step two, after I have gingerly manipulated the paint  with 6″ squeegee. I was careful not to remove too much paint just, to  make the paint film thinner with light gestures of varying pressure and size. Example 6 reveals the image after I selectively deleted paint with a squeegee  to suggest a bright distance.

example 3. cropped photo.

example 4. step one, the lay-in.

example 5. step two, early squeegee work.

example 6. step three, selective deletions.

Because there are so many possible design configurations when looking into the meadow’s chaos I need to extract a simple design. My design menu here  includes the “Zig Zag”, the “Spiral”, the “Wave or W pattern” , and a “Cascading Triad”.  In example 7 I offer you an example demonstrating a spiral design’s ability to suggest space. It is the domed interior of a Baroque Church in Rome. In example 8 I have aimed the spiral pattern across a meadow and stabilized it with a soft curving horizon, a swale.  The image has a superimposed red diagrammed spiral and counterpoint curve.

example 7. Ceiling Spiral.

example 8. Meadow Spiral.

Zig zags can be tilted to improve their dynamism as you see in example 9. The red lines demonstrate the pattern.  A wave pattern or “W” is simply the zig zag turned sideways.  In example 10 I use this  softly curving wave pattern in my painting. It is an oil on anodized aluminum, 36×36.

example 9. receding zig zag.

example 10. Wave Pattern in a painting.

Example 12 demonstrates another Wave or “W” pattern which appears across the surface of the water. Trace the blue water shape to see it’s the same design as the painting above. This work is an oil on brushed silver anodized aluminum.

Example 12. Wave or W pattern again.

The shapes serve as metaphors. I titled this blogpost “Autumn Cascade” to exploit the metaphorical power of shapes.  Like a Haiku, my leaves bend and fall like water.  I noticed how leaves lose their structural strength after a frost. They hang limply  having lost the firm authority of their previous curvature. Borrowing the form of the traditional triptych I have three interacting and merged columns of post-frost foliage. Example 13 presents a preliminary stage with the painting. Example 14 presents the painting as it currently appears, an oil on white anodized aluminum, 36×36.

example 13. preliminary stage.

example 14. Present appearance.

I look forward to seeing artists who will paint with me in one of my three workshops in Jerry Artarama’s Art of The Carolinas on this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. See daviddunlop.com for details.