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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Abstract Painting
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Have you ever wondered what the world looks like from a nest hidden in the tall grass? Imagine the spears of grass as swords jutting up int the air, like a rampart against a hostile charge. Twigs laying across the perimeter establish an entrenched boundary, protecting the hen from enemy fire. Overhead the sky glows weird colors from spring sunshine filtered through overhead leafy camoflage. Your eggs reflect those colors, and blend in with the chaotic symphony of electromagnetic vibrations.
You hear your mate honking as he circles the area, but you and your precious clutch is hidden so well that he cannot spot it from above. You need a break so you send up a beacon that illuminates your location. He sees the flare and homes in to give you some well deserved relief, and assumes his place as a proud father to be.
Who can make sense of the totality of the world? Certainly not a goose, nor a human for that matter. All we can comprehend with any certainty is what we perceive in our environment, be it the close proximity of a circle of woven sticks and moss, or the vast reaches of space and time. Which world you inhabit depends upon your capacity to engage.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Abstract Painting
- Hits: 2083
You could say I've had a full life, on the high seas scouting for rich merchant vessels and livin' it up with my mates on South Sea islands. Yeah, I don't regret a minute of it, except maybe the fight when I lost me leg, and the time when my best friend turned on me in a drunken brawl and put out my eye with a broken bottle. You know everybody wants to live the easy life and that was my dream when I decided I'd had enough of privateering and headed for my own remote piece of paradise in the Society Islands. Well, it hasn't been as rosy as they claim. Even with my fine clothes the heat and humidity still turns them sour after a week or so, but I can live with my own aroma, I guess. That way I don't mind if my parrot relieves himself on my coat. Also, the bugs are everywhere and get into my gruel, but some of them are kind of crunchy and add extra flavor.
I get around okay, going to the market for breadfruit and sometimes fresh fish, and o'course stopping by the watering hole to reminisce with old pirate pals. When I stay too long I get kinda bleary-eyed, which is bad because I only have one eye and can't really tell where things are in front of me until it's too late. That must be what happened the other evening when I was on my way home. Cursed root had grown across the path during the day and I didn't see it properly. Sure enough I caught it with my good leg and that left me teetering like a ballerina on the point of my wooden leg. Well, in my younger days I would have just laughed and made a pirouette to impress the ladies, but there was nobody there on the path except maybe a few lizards. When they saw me toppling they scattered, and o'course my trusty parrot friend decided to abandon ship.
Well, like a good captain I went down with the vessel, and I did drown in my sorrows for a time, laying there on the path in the gloom, feeling sorry for myself. But you know what? I figured this was my reward for escaping death so many times in the past. It isn't pleasant, this daily struggle, but it has its own kind of sweetness.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Abstract Painting
- Hits: 378
This abstract composition shows my use of pressure sensing pen use on my Huion tablet. The assignment was for traditional media using a brayer, but I used a wide ink pen setting and various patterns and textures with the paintbrush tool to achieve similar effects. I started out with nine different thumbnail design sketches, and liked this one the most. The two hanging orbs could be fruit on tree or bush branches, or insect eyes on stalks. Take your pick, or come up with your own interpretation.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Abstract Painting
- Hits: 525
This painting is the first product of my Abstract Painting course with Laura Denny and she invented the term eMoodle, which stands for an emotional doodle. She asked me what my emotions were when I created this piece, and I replied "anxiety, energy, and perhaps a little anger, although more like intense anxiety." I did this with GIMP and used multiple layers, one for each brush type and thickness. I then adjusted the opacity of each layer to get the balance that appealed to me the most. I said what I valued most from this exercise was the feeling of spontaneity, which often gets submerged in my artwork due to the lengthy process involved.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Abstract Painting
- Hits: 593
The chairs partially obscure the bicycle and create angular contrast to the more curvilinear shapes in the bicycle wheels and sprockets. The foreground objects have lots of shaped gradients to give the forms the illusion of rounded tubes, cylinders, and donuts.
The background copies those shapes and distorts them in a fractal pattern. There is also a hexagonal pattern in the background that resembles crocodile skin. You can see elements of the foreground objects repeated endlessly in distorted and diminished copies that appear to drain out of the picture in the corners.
The foreground objects have much higher color intensity and variation in hue, while the background is monochrome. This appears to be neutral, but in actuality is a low intensity green. This creates an overall color cast that forces the viewer to choose a new subjective neutral.
I wanted to work with a limited color palette that would create an overall mood. I also wanted to create a more abstract design, with realistic elements. There might be too much going on here, but it does keep the viewer engaged for a while.
Perhaps leaving the foreground objects more realistic provides some reference points and grounds the image, balancing the chaotic and bewildering shapes in the background. This is a different way of thinking about negative space, as there is almost more happening between the foreground objects than in those forms.