Between the Notes

"Les Grands Clements"
15 x 11, Oil on Linen
(c) Maggie Siner

I recently read a quotation from Mozart: "The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between." Oh, wow. My mind flew immediately to an analogy with painting. One might say that in painting, the art is not in the objects portrayed, but in the spaces between them. These spaces are often called "negative spaces"--but that term definitely does not do them justice!

"Traghetto"
Oil on Linen
(c) Maggie Siner

Just look at the top painting. The house is nice, yes; and also the tree. But what I really love are the negative spaces between the tree branches, where you glimpse the house between. Those spaces make the painting sing. And in the

Seeing a Shadow

What better time to write about shadows than now, approaching Groundhog Day! As we wonder whether the groundhog will see his shadow, I am thinking about shadows in my paintings. Sometimes it is a struggle to get shadow shapes and colors correct. 

(c) Peggi Kroll Roberts

One issue is that a shadow varies in intensity. The "core" of a shadow tends to be very dark, but the edges tend to be lighter. Or, as Leonardo da Vinci said  more poetically:

Painting the Pink Cadillac

"Ready Mix Plant"
12 x 9, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2014

Several years ago, I participated in a workshop taught by Peggi Kroll Roberts. Peggi is a very talented teacher and artist from California. She told us a story that I will never forget. It holds a large lesson--perhaps not only for painting, but also for life.

Peggi told about being in a workshop in a beautiful location. The group was taken to a painting spot with beautiful, distant mountain vistas from one viewpoint, and lovely rolling countryside from another. Everybody rushed to set up their easels and start to paint the gorgeous mountain vista. A few chose the rolling pastures. 

Peggi started with the mountains, but could not get a good start. She grew nervous, and picked up her easel to move to the pasture view to try that. On the way, she passed an old pink Cadillac parked along the road, and thought it looked really cool. When she got to the pasture view, she again struggled with her painting and was not making progress. Growing desperate by now, she moved her easel back to the mountain view. Again passing the Cadillac, and again thinking how much she liked the lines of it...

Back to the mountain vista, Peggi continued to be discouraged. She was growing frantic. Finally a light went off, and she said to herself, "I don't care if I am in a spot chosen for its natural beauty--and everybody else is painting the lovely landscape--I love that Cadillac, and that's what I'm going to paint!" 

Peggi's Cadillac painting turned out to be quite a success. It was everybody's favorite of the day. I always try to remember this lesson: paint what grabs you! The painting pictured above is my own "pink Cadillac" from the recent Paint Out in the Blue Ridge mountains. It is one I was itching to paint, especially after so many bucolic mountain vistas! The image below shows another "Pink Cadillac Moment" that I had during a workshop in France. All that sweeping countryside, I wanted to paint the clean-up sink in the studio. Strange leanings...

"Clean up Sink"
8 x 6, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2013

Now and Then

"Peasant Woman at Montemurlo"
Oil on Cardboard, 10 x 5 1/2
Vincenzo Cabianca, 1860-62

In the course of my research for the recent post on the Macchiaioli, I came across some wonderful figurative work by Vincenzo Cabianca (one of the Macchiaioli). These 19th century Italian paintings immediately brought to mind the work of