From collage to painting: Naomi 1

In the December 14th post I described how Beatrice transferred the outlines of her collage to a medium size canvas.  For precision, that’s the way to go.  But not the only way.  Naomi, for example, decided to make the transfer freehand.  Her collage was on 8½ x 11 paper and her canvas measured about 11 x 15. She painted directly without a preliminary drawing on the canvas. In comparing the collage (right)) and the painting, one can see that the collage definitely presents a sense of foreground, middle ground and background but that the painting allows for a much richer sense of depth. For a landscape painter, the techniques of creating the illusion of receding space are essential.  In this regard, a fantasy landscape is an ideal challenge:  the space has to be made convincing even though it is plainly incredible.  In this fantastic landscape we can identify references to real landscapes: trees, mountains, ocean. This makes the task easy, because a big tree has to be in the foreground and a small mountain in the far distance. Not only that, the mountain has to be hazy and soft edged, while the tree has to be sharply delineated.  The willowy orange tree trunks on the right read like something in the distance because they are so much smaller than the black tree in the left foreground, but they are also bigger than the mountain and therefore they simultaneously pull us back into the imaginary world.  The effect tickles the imagination and keeps the eye wandering through this enjoyable illusion.  In the collage the foreground vegetation took the form of crinkled clumps of colorful paper.  In the final work this “vegetation” is masterfully painted to suggest clarity, detail and proximity to the viewer without being painted with any specificity or literalness.  It’s juicy and painterly and thrilling.

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