His painting, The Kiss, is recognizable to most people. Honestly, I was never a fan of his based on that painting alone. I often get turned off by artists who sexualize women in art. I'm not soapboxing here. Everything in art is fine; it just wasn't for me, you know? So Klimt would never have appeared on my favorite artist's lists before, but that changed when I saw some of his landscape paintings.
When the subject isn't a portrait of a beautiful woman, I'm able see so much more in his paintings. I see his ambitious impressionist color usage, intricate patterns that take on a mosaic feel, and variations between the real and abstract. Some areas of his paintings will appear 2D flat while other areas draw your attention by being intensely defined. The effect is an abstracted look at a nature and I'm obsessed.
It's important to note that I'm basing my newfound adoration on viewing his art on my computer screen. These paintings are much bigger in real life, and I'm sure the scale and texture adds yet another element to appreciating his work.
So if you haven't already, take a minute to dive deep on Gustav Klimt.
Sources:
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/klimts-landscapes/
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I once thought I was a landscape painter. I'd recreate scenes of the mountains, valleys, and beaches that had emotional significance to me.
After a while, I felt the insistent urge to do something else.
]]>I once thought I was a landscape painter. I'd recreate scenes of the mountains, valleys, and beaches that had emotional significance to me. And for a while, I enjoyed painting these scenes. I love being outside in nature; painting a scenic overlook from a reference photo was even soothing, like being there.
After a while, I felt the insistent urge to do something else. I started by modernizing the landscapes with white, geometric lines. Yes! I've always liked contemporary art the most, so doing this made my landscape paintings seem more edgy and modern. Yet, I felt restless again. Before long, I needed to push it further. I wanted to be more expressive! I took this to mean I needed to abstractify my landscapes in some way.
Lines over Joshua Tree, 2016.
Can you see where this is going? My heart was aching to paint a different way, but my brain kept telling me to stay in my lane.
On the inside, I was always an abstract artist, not a landscape artist. Painting landscapes early on made me love painting, but it wasn't until I started painting abstract paintings that I truly fell in love with my own art.
It took me a long time to admit I was an abstract artist. Not everyone appreciates this type of art, as it doesn't seem to require any real skill to make it. I disagree with this, of course, but I concede that anyone can make art, no matter their skill level.
There is a skill to abstract painting, and it is this:
You must make it with feeling. Make your feelings known with color and expression like a song without sound or a poem without words. If the painting you're gazing at makes you feel something, it does not matter if you can identify the subject matter or scene. In this way, abstract art is raw and unencumbered with the mundane or superficial, and I am completely besotted with it as a unique form of self expression.
Cosmic Box, Kasey Wanford, 2022
]]>It's been quite the busy few weeks of preparing for my first Open Studio. Open Studio is when an artist opens up their studio to the public, like an open house. It's education, community enrichment, and an opportunity for the artist to sell work that's just been hanging around unseen.
Although this is my first time participating in the grand Portland Open Studios as an artist, I've visited some of the tour stops before, and enjoyed it very much. I was able to ask artists about their process and get insight into what motivates them in their art. It's an opportunity to make a real connection with an artist you admire, and gain a deeper understanding about their work.
I hope you'll join me in my studio. I'm looking forward to seeing many folks! For directions, visit my artist page at Portland Open Studio's website. I am artist #117. I'll be greeting visitors Oct 8,9,15,16 from 10am-5pm.
https://portlandopenstudios.com/2022-artist/2022-artists/kasey-wanford.html
]]>Places to look for crafted items and art locally are art fairs, art pop-ups, galleries, book stores and coffee shops that feature local artists. Where can you buy art online? Here are some of the best places to buy art online (besides from me at TDLart.com, of course): Etsy.com, Artfinder.com, Saatchi Art, are great places to browse, or simply direct message an artist/maker you follow on social media and ask them for a price list. I promise, it isn't weird to reach out this way. We love it! I already have a long list of artists in mind I want to collect, so I just wait until the right piece comes along in their Instagram posts and hope that it's within my budget.
For many, fall is their favorite season. I really like it too. It's definitely one of my top four seasons. What about you? Let me know in the comments if you have a special fall tradition.
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https://www.youtube.com/embed/UGw9sAxhXXw |
I took Art History 101 in the mid-nineties (a long time ago), so I'm quite sure she was still minimized back then, because I don't recall any discussion of her. Much of what I learned in school is hazy, but I think I would recall it if my professor had announced that the inventor of abstract art was a woman! It has only been in recent years that I've heard her name come up frequently enough to make me curious. Are we surprised that art historians have (until recently) overlooked the contributions of a remarkable woman? Not really.
But I digress. The real reason for this blog post is to tell you my impression of how Hilma af Klint approached making a painting and how it struck me how similar it is to the way I work.
When I'm painting, I am not trying to portray anything as much as examine it and demystify it for myself. I collect impressions and feelings and try to make sense of it in a visual medium, using color and line. I think Hilma af Klint made her abstracts for the same reason. She was tuned into something and wanted to translate it in the only way she know how, through art.
Although she would have liked them to be well received in her lifetime, Hilma af Klint knew her paintings were too "out there" to be accepted. Even so, she valued her own work and made sure they were kept together and in good hands until the world was ready for them. Basically, she was a badass. Maybe a little kooky too, but if artists can't be eccentric, who can be?
Hilma af Klint died in 1944 at the age of 81 in Sweden. It's worth taking a deep dive into Hilma af Klint's work, or just watching the documentary about her life.
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Even while I was making artwork digitally, I wasn't seeing it as my real art so much as art exploration. I was thinking of the work I did on my iPad as only art journaling, or sketching ideas and nothing more. It was exploring ideas and color combos and just having fun with no end purpose in mind. It made sense. iPad art came for me at a time during 2020 when I was home with the kids while they did virtual school and couldn't excuse myself to paint, and it was also that summer when we were in the middle of moving houses, and my supplies were still in boxes. Digital art was a terrific solution and outlet for my creative energy!
Once the frenzy of moving was over, and my paints, canvases and brushes were unpacked and organized in my larger and dedicated studio, I realized that iPad art was my habit, and I liked it.
It wasn't until I started reaching for my iPad more often than my paint brushes that I realized I was in trouble. I wasn't spending enough time in my studio and I wasn't painting enough. In fact, I think I was enjoying the ease of digital too much. No time wasted with color mixing! No drying time! Easy to "undo" mistakes! No risk!
So with the acceptance, comes the dilemma: If I'm spending a great portion of my art-making time on digital art, how do I sell something that's essentially electronic vapor? NFTs? Prints?
NFTs may be all the rage, but it took me several weeks of researching it as an option to decide it's not for me. I want people to hang my artwork in their homes where it can be seen. I am not sure they would do that if they bought the digital token, even if I encouraged them to have it printed. Never say never though. Someday I may eat my words on NFTs and join the gang. For now though, I needed to find a way forward that can support me as a working artist.
I am a painter and I am a digital artist too. And it's ok to be an artist any way you want to be an artist. As for sales, I'm happy to report that my digital art prints beautifully, and I now offer some of them for purchase as limited edition prints on my website, right alongside my original painted works.
Maybe the dilemma was all in my head. I've been getting good feedback about the prints so I think I needn't have worried about it so much.
Unboxing the May prints.
This is a photo from my walk today, but squint a little and imagine it as an abstract painting. See those lines? The texture of the background? Darks and lights? When you strip what you're seeing down to basics, your brain doesn't need to identify the subject matter, and can instead think about how it feels. Restful? Anxious? Alive? Sad? Joyful?
For instance, I would not need to know this was a nature photo to feel restful when I look at it. I see the subdued colors, and the softness of the the textures and immediately feel peaceful. The dark lines help to keep it from being too sleepy.
And now I really want to show you this painting I love by Randall David Tipton, who is so adept at abstractifying landscapes. Instead of seeing just branches and riverbank, you may notice color, shapes and feeling first. The subjects clarify later.
It's an interesting way to look at things and helps one understand why abstract art can be abstract and still convey plenty to the viewer.
I'm a huge fan of Randall's work and he's been a wonderful mentor to me as I struggle along this artist path. If you don't yet know him, he is @randalldavidtipton on Instagram.
Have a comment? Leave it below ⤵
]]>You know when I first figured out that I was an abstract painter at heart? It was while I was painting and my mind checked out and I let intuition take over. I had some music playing, and I was expressing my thoughts and feelings through color choice and movements with the the brush. I let my heart do the thinking and it felt great! Afterwards, I felt great! The painting itself was not amazing, but the feeling was and I wanted to keep that going. I had to learn to improve the paintings after the fact.
Now what do you do with artwork that isn't yet amazing? Simple refinements can make all the difference.
Don't go down the tunnel of emotional despair.
Calling yourself a bad artist just isn't rational, or helpful, or correct.
Ask yourself, "Can it be fixed?"
Only you can answer this question. Is there something about this artwork that you're proud of and want to preserve somehow? If not, paint over it. If so, read on:
Can it be fixed without losing its soul?
There have been many times when I've tried to improve a painting, and what I end up with has lost all the magic it once had. It's usually because I tried to smooth out some choppy areas that looked too messy up close, only afterwards to discover it was in those choppy areas where the emotional soul of the painting was.
Ways to fix it:
This is where a good eye for design comes in handy, plus more of that "artist's intuition". Somedays I'm in short supply of both, so I rely on these old standbys:
1. Check for value contrast:
Squint your eyes at your painting and see if there are a lot of darks and a lot of lights. This is how I do it, but I know a lot of other artists just take a photo of the painting with their phone and apply a black & white filter on it in their photo editing app. You can also get a piece of transparent red acetate, and look at your paintings through that. It's amazing how a high levels of value contrasts can make a painting more appealing. Home designers know this too, which is why the walls in their photos of rooms are so often white, with pops of color here and there, and a dark green plant or a black lamp breaking up the vast whiteness of the walls.
2. Check for balance.
Do you have too many square shapes and not enough circles? Too many lines and not enough dots? Too many cheeseburgers and not enough french fries? I don't know what you have in your artwork, but it may have too much of one thing which may leave it feeling off balance. With balance, I mean the yin and yang kind, which is hard for me to describe but could be elements of brushwork that are both: refined and unrefined, deliberate and accidental, harsh and soft, dark and light. Hopefully this makes sense to you dear readers. Feel free to leave a comment if it does not.
3. Is there a path for the eye?
When you look at your canvas, you probably take it all in at once, but then your eye goes somewhere first and then it moves around the painting to look at other things. If your eyes aren't going around the whole canvas in this natural way, perhaps that's where it can be improved. Ask yourself if making a better visual pathway would be an improvement. Is there a line blocking the natural eye path? If there is, break up that line so we can see it all.
Fixing art problems of my own creation is now one of my favorite hobbies.
Almost every morning over coffee, I'll grab my iPad, open up the Procreate app and make myself an art mess to fix. Doing this digitally is very freeing because no art materials get wasted and I can try anything. I get great ideas for future paintings with my iPad as my idea sketchbook.
Hopefully, this has been helpful. If so, I want to hear about it. Leave me a comment below.
~Kasey
"Katana" digital Kasey Wanford 2021
Follow me on Instagram to see daily digital paintings @tdlart.
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Stay tuned for pictures of the new studio space. I'm so excited about it!!
Use discount code "MOVEIT" at checkout. Expires on July 3, 2020.
]]>Therefore nothing is wasted! Not time, not even materials (except for paint). If it's bad art on wood panel or canvas, I can gesso over it and start fresh. If it's bad art on paper, I keep it in a folder in a file drawer to cut up and use in collage someday. It's nice to look through that folder to see where I've been artistically and it's worth a good chuckle. Not right away, but when the heartbreak isn't still fresh. Happy painting, friends.
~Kasey
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So it isn't a surprise that I have been using modeling paste in my most recent abstract pieces so I have more to carve. I love the dimension and texture it adds and I feel the need to keep the compositions simple to let the artwork's texture receive the viewer's attention.
"Worlds Inside" 9x12
"Things I learned in Prism" 9x14
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It's been a week. Okay, it's been two weeks. I've barely painted anything. What gives?
I am not positive what's going on with me, but it has something to do with being disappointed with my process in previous years and wanting to start fresh with a new outlook and new routine that will lead to more productivity and better inspiration. I don't know where to start so I haven't. It feels like if I start off on the wrong foot I'll stay wrong for the rest of school year. Dumb, I know. It explains my reluctance but doesn't hold up as an excuse. I need to paint!
This afternoon I listened to the Artists Helping Artists podcast titled, "15 Ways to Get Inspired About Your Art." I found the tips helpful in my time of need. Many of them are things I would do already, such as visit art supply stores and watch other artists paint, but there were other tips I hadn't considered. Take a listen if you get a chance.
I've also been cleaning up my studio and rearranging my work space, in an effort to ward off any slump-inducing evil spirits that might be hiding under old canvases. I've been thinking about my routine and how to maximize my painting time.
The most important tip, I think, is to just paint whatever you feel like painting, even if it's not your genre. Even if it's just a still-life study. Even if it isn't painting at all but is sketching with crayons. It's all slump busting and should lead to better things. I'm working on it.
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I often wonder if writing is terribly hard work or it is terribly easy. Sometimes it feels easy, which lures one into a false set of confidence, only to be paralyzed with doubt when nothing flows. Right now I’m doing a free write, a little exercise to get the words flowing. Next will come focus, but first must come flow. In this way, painting is also like writing. I like the idea of thinking of creative pursuits as water. You’re either blocking it or channeling it. Most of the time, I’ve had it blocked. It isn’t my nature to let it flood all over the place. That would be so untidy! Paint dripping everywhere! A hot glue-gun mess of ideas and no solutions! If my brain can’t put order to it, it wants nothing to do with it.
I want to know if I can be creative without limits. Is it in me? If so, how extraordinary! I will conduct an experiment and observe the results like a scientist. Like the person who doesn’t have to clean up the glitter or paint drips from the walls. No more tidying of thoughts and words into neat little rows. Not until the creation has occurred and there’s no way to take it back.
Will it be writing? Will it be painting? Will it be both? I don’t know. I’d like to dive into it all and see what happens. Excitement and fear battle it out with creative output the only thing left on the battlefield.
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Plein air painting in Oregon can be wonderful when you have the time. Despite outside perception, it doesn't rain all the time in the Pacific Northwest.
As for me, I tend to just bring my camera phone with me on hikes and use the photos I take as references in my home art studio. It's easier than lugging all my art supplies and wet canvases around, and in my studio, I'm in complete control of my surroundings. Unless my kids are home.
Here is my outside set up. I think I was using oil paints this day. Oils do not dry as fast in the sun.
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