The Oval, Roseville, MN – 5:15-6:45p Paint-In; 7-9pm brief meeting and demo!

Not quite a portrait OR a landscape with figures, painting a figure in an environment allows the artist to tell a story about a person or people without getting into the details of likeness.  It is more about what they are doing, where they are, or some other narrative the artist chooses to tell. Moreover, approaching a painting in this way requires designing the composition as a whole, rather than emphasizing the figure over background.  Simplification, color, value, edges, relationships, etc. — are much more important to weave the figure and ground together.   With figures in a landscape, the figures are subordinated to the “place”  unless the artist has pulled in the focus such that the figures are more prominently depicted. 

CHECK OUT JANET’S WORK HERE:  http://www.janetflom.com/

ARTIST STATEMENT

Watercolor’s versatility in alluding to both two and three dimensional forms in space are what interest me, and I am always looking for opportunities to move between the flatness of the support and more developed areas, all within the same painting. My painting goals involve respecting the paper and the drawing as well as the paint, and to make that paint as freshly attractive as possible without over-handling.  I like a watercolor to look like it was painted with water — fluid and immediate, with its own character dominant to my attempts to control it.

This approach to painting can be challenging in the most basic ways.  The ratio of water to paint is always an issue.  The application of paint to paper in the direct, fresh manner that I admire requires almost performance-level confidence.  Also, I find it extremely difficult to accept the marks put down and refrain from fiddling.

LAST MEETING –