Glow

Glow

40 x 30"

acrylic and oil on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2013
sold

I just returned home from a much needed evening out with some friends. Spending time with these girls is like therapy and we need to make it happen more often. With my spirit intact I feel good enough to share an abstract I have been puttering around with at the studio. As I have mentioned in the past, abstracts are way outside of my comfort zone, but I am intrigued and challenged by them and I love when I come across an abstract work that moves me in some way. My blogger friend, Kim Rempel, is a landscape painter who has officially delved into abstract painting full force and she is banging out some beauties. I am so proud of her for her courage and determination to push her artistic self in this way, to face the unknown and uncomfortable and work through it. You can check out her work if you go to her blog Eat Drink Paint. I strongly encourage you to take the time.

The painting I am showing you today is an extension of the 1-2-3 exercise from my class at the Emma Lake Kenderdine Campus last summer where you create a painting, then from that one you take a favorite section and do another painting, then you repeat that same process. You can keep going on like that with each painting becoming more abstract. Glow came from a section of an abstract branch painting I did at that class. I really wanted to focus on the lines of the branches, but simplify the composition by selecting which ones to remove, leaving others in place to create interesting shapes and areas. Another thing I wanted to do was use colour to create a feeling of a glow behind the branches... almost like light coming through a stained glass window. Unfortunately the glow or slightly vibrating colour does not come through well on the computer screen. I have had this painting at my house for the last week and at night, in a dimly lit room, the bright areas actually do seem to emit a soft glow. It is a cool effect I hadn't anticipated.