This week I’m sharing my abstract interpretations of four different floral blooms I created using two different styles. The first two I created with a soft watercolor technique. The first one is a dahlia bloom and the second one is a camellia bloom.
With these last two, I used an impasto oil technique to create texture in the blooms. The first one has a more subtle texture look then the second one.
I have attached three art prints with the message “He Walks With You Always”. Two of them are photographic captures and the other one is an abstract print I created. I think it’s important to remind ourselves that we are not on this journey of life by ourselves.
For todays post, I wanted to share the process I went through in creating some “fruit” still life art prints. The art prints started with photographic captures I took of decorative fruit. The fruit pieces in question were decorative elements we had on our dining room table.
I took a picture of a decorative pear and apple side by side –
Pear and Apple Blog
From there I created an art print using a basic watercolor technique –
The next series of photographs I took were individual captures of two pears of different colors and two apples of different colors. I then cropped the four different fruits into a square with the brown and red fruits diagonally across from each other.
Pear Apple Squared Blog
I then created an art print using the same abstract watercolor technique.
I did a photoshoot of covered bridges in Oregon a few years back. I wanted to share the original captures of two of the bridges I shot. I then turned them both into two versions of watercolor prints. The first version is a soft watercolor technique (a more traditional look) and the second version is an abstract watercolor technique (a more contemporary look).
The original capture of Neal Lane Covered Bridge –
I’ve been sharing this year some of the photographs that have been the inspiration or original version of my art prints. This week I’m sharing my abstract art interpretation of two coastal sunsets and one coastal moon set. All three are along the Pacific Ocean coastline…one in San Diego County and two in Northern California.
The first one is based on an actual photograph of a sunset I captured from the bedroom deck of our house. Our neighborhood was built on a ridge of hills that was located next to the Carlsbad Water District retention pond (Carlsbad is a coastal community in Northern San Diego County). I mention that because the bulk of the land to support that retention pond was a wide open field that will never be developed. It afforded all of the homes along the western front of the neighborhood great ocean views. The house we raised our girls in was at the end of a cul-de-sac that was on that western edge of the development affording us a view of the coastline and the Pacific Ocean.
Carlsbad, California Ocean Sunset
Using this photograph I did a digital re-creation of the scene for my Abstract Art Gallery.
The next two art prints were created from memory, again using abstract art as the focus of the creation. The two depictions came from memory of coastal scenes in Northern California that really stuck with me. The first one is a sunset with a typical evening marine layer of clouds coming in just before the sun actually set. The low clouds would part sporadically and allow the setting sun to shine through.
The next one was a full moon setting as a marine layer started rolling in. The low clouds would part sporadically and allow the setting moon to shine through very similar to the setting sun creation above.
In these series of prints, I used photographic captures from a flamingo exhibit at the LA Zoo as an inspiration for the poses. I then drew each flamingo pose in Adobe Photoshop and filled the drawings with an abstract watercolor look. I then took the series of flamingos that I had created as individual art prints and added inspirational words for each one.
The setting is the Daniels and Fisher Tower located in downtown Denver along the 16th Street Mall. The tower was constructed in 1910 as part of the Daniels and Fisher department store. At that time it was the tallest structure between the Mississippi River and California.
This is a prime example of taking a photographic capture and creating three different artistic looks to the same subject. I usually limit my final art prints to no more than two versions. In this case I liked all three results and couldn’t narrow it down to just two.
Below is the original capture from a trip my wife and I took back to our old stomping ground in 2019 (we lived in Denver from 1975 – 1989).
From this capture, I created an art print using a pointillism technique. This technique was developed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in 1886 which creates a picture using small tiny dots of color to form the subject.
From there I decided to take it to the other side of the spectrum by using a fauvism technique. This technique was developed with a vivid expressionistic and non-naturalistic use of color that flourished in Paris from 1905.
This particular art print I’m featuring this week is one of six creations featuring butterflies. All six of those are actually the same print, but done in a variety of colors. I thought it might be interesting to go through the creation of this particular print.
I’ll start with the original photographic capture and walk through the steps I took to end up with the final art print.
Initial Purple Butterfly
This was a rather large silken butterfly decoration hanging from a garden walkway at a pre-school in the Los Angeles area. It caught my eye and I snapped a couple of shots to see what I could do with it (the creative element is always at work in my head).
Then from this capture, I took it to Photoshop where I create my art and digitally “cut” the butterfly out of the picture. I drew the outline to create obvious edges and then started playing with paint styles and techniques. From that process it resulted in the this capture.
The Individual Purple Butterfly Created
Then I created a few different sizes and rotated the images to create different flying angles. For the background I went through a similar process with a single leaf. I made a dupIicate of that leaf and chose two different colors to use. I also made them transparent so that the background would bleed through. I then duplicated them into various sizes and worked at positioning each leaf to created the entire scene. Last step was to create a soft color for the background. For anyone that has worked with Photoshop you know that each step is on a different layer and as you are creating you have a multitude of layers. When I was done, I merged the layers into the final print you see above.
Thoughts? As I have said before, everyone reacts to visual art techniques and looks differently, so I am not in the least offended by opinions.
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