who knew rocks could be so interesting

Rockettes

18" x 18" - acrylic and pastel on archival acrylic paper - $125

Last summer I started really looking at rocks - particularly the big ones that line the shores of lakes and larger bodies of water. I have been fortunate to travel to places where there are bodies of water, both wild and tranquil, and so I have many photos showing rocks in a wide variety of forms and settings. I painted these two landscapes as a result of that thematic interest.

Rocky Shore Georgian Bay

Georgia Bay Vista

Then I began to focus on the rocks and their shapes and became intrigued with how abstract they could appear, especially when enlarged, simplified and emboldened with expressive colour, and I painted these.

BAlancing Act

Rock and Roll

All of which brings me to 'now' and what I have been painting recently - more rocks. The work at the top of this post is called 'Rockettes' (with all that pink I had to name it something that sounded feminine) and is based on a photo of rocks in water, but if you don't see the water that's ok - just imagine the warm summer sun setting, and enjoy the arrangement of shapes. 

Rocks as Inspiration

Balancing Act
acrylic on canvas - 36" x 24"
This is for sale - contact me for price if interested.

I love rocky shore lines and have taken many photos of such over the years, thinking that they might be good subjects to paint - but how? Using my mac, I recently began to select details from the larger photos, cropping out about 90% of the original photo and found that I had some really interesting little abstract compositions of shapes, forms, and lines - and so have begun to paint them.

This is the first of these rock-inspired abstract paintings. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, and particularly like the combination of 3 dimensional forms and flat 2 dimensional shapes. I have another one on the easel.....so stay tuned.