Even simple objects can be interesting. Imagine a still life. A cup. A spoon. A checkered tablecloth.
But things can get even more interesting if the artist intentionally plays with the concept of seeing through objects. Perhaps the checkered cloth is visible through the cup. Maybe the spoon is transparent. Or one object is in front of another – obscuring part of the object behind. Or the whole scene may be seen through a window. Or a window may be behind the objects, abstractly, covering and not covering the objects before it.
When artists look beyond seeing and depicting things on a single plane, the possibilities are endless.
Last week I had several artist groups visit my exhibition at the Museum of Art Deland. We gathered for an art chat after allowing time to look at the works individually. One of the topics we discussed was “layers.” Many of my compositions develop ideas in layers.
This is a detail from The Lord Giveth and the Interstate Taketh Away. The house depicted is a photo transfer. I stood by a large abandoned home in rural South Carolina and shot he photo. But the character on the steps is from my imagination. Grandma is calling everybody home for supper.
Real, but not real. I saw the house through the imagined figure. So, to depict her, I mixed a lot of transparent medium into my acrylic paint and I painted her transparently.
Here is that imagined character in the whole work.
In another work, the transparency is digital.
This is a section of House of Leaves when it was in progress in my studio. (What you are seeing is the paper laser color copies on my easel before I transferred to fabric. They will be mirror image of this in the final work.) Working in layers in Photoshop Elements, I put the leaf on top of the house then defined a portion of it to be transparent.
Here is how it looked in the finished work.
In my studio now I am working to complete the large work with trees and limb layers I have posted about several times over the past few months. Here is a section in progress on my easel.
Layers in the background are created by partially obscuring the limb pattern but letting it show through in places. The house is made transparent by an overpaint with white thinned with medium. The bird is in front by physically placing it (a raw edge applique) in front of the house. A semi-transparent square overlaps the bird. The bird itself is painted semi-transparent, with some limbs showing its body. The leaves are opaque, stenciled on as the layer closest in the foreground .
The very very first step in all of these approaches is to THINK in layers. Imagine seeing though objects or placing one thing in front of another. Then the experimenting can begin.
. . . .
Exhibiting in the Museum of Art DeLand has been a pleasure and an honor. A reminder: the show is up through August 16. If you are near central Florida, I hope you will visit.
For all of us: focus each day
on the good that needs to be done in the world.
Be part of doing it.
Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com