Slow Painting Ahead

Here are a couple of detail images - call it a sneak peek of a large painting. It is 48 x 48 inches and has been in the studio for a longish time waiting to be completed. I am working my way down to the refining stages, and evaluating details.

I can hardly wait to call it finished. However, it seems to want to come along slowly. Some paintings are like that.

Marsh With Snow

A Little Snow on the Marsh Katherine Kean
oil on linen 8 x 10 inches

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” ― Rachel Carson

Hazy Skies With a Touch of Green

Hazy Before Thunder Chatham Beach © 2014 Katherine Kean
oil on linen 12 x 12 inches

This painting is about the feeling of when the beach is the only place to escape the heat and humidity mere minutes before the thunderstorm breaks. 

Have you ever noticed how the sky sometimes takes on a greenish cast right before a storm? People have noted this phenomena for centuries and modern scientists don't deny it, although there is no consensus on what the cause is. It could be the mixing of yellow sunlight scattered by particles in the air that makes the blue sky a greenish color., but who knows?

Tranquil Art, Healing Art

Fog Lifting ©2014 Katherine Kean
oil on linen 30 x 40 inches

This past week I learned that Fog Lifting has been awarded a Featured Artist Award and included as one of 50 artworks in an international juried competition presented by Manhattan Arts International. Celebrate the Healing Power of Art 2014 runs online from May 17 - July 17, 2014.

The guest juror is Lilly Wei, a New York-based art critic, writer and independent curator focusing on contemporary art. She's a contributor to many art publications including Art In America since 1984 and Art News.

I am also included in an article written by  Renée Phillips, an internationally known author and arts writer, published on the Manhattan Arts International blog: Four Artists Who Express Tranquility, which can be read in full here:  http://www.manhattanartsblog.com/artists-express-tranquility/

From Cloud to Cloud

From Cloud to Cloud ©2014 Katherine Kean
oil on linen  16 x 20 inches

"We used to walk up in the sky 
Up where the air is rarefied 
Went hand-in-hand from cloud to cloud...."
Darwin Deez, Up in the Clouds

Pareidolia

Pareidolia is the word for the phenomenon of seeing unplanned, or unintended images in artwork. Typically faces, the most famous example is probably the Man in the Moon.

 Leonardo da Vinci wrote this about pareidolia,

"If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms."

Indeed, uneven surfaces, textures, broken brush strokes all seem to add to the effect.

Below are a couple of examples of my paintings that I've been told have unintended images in them:

 
Can you spot the pareidolia? I've been told that the top image has a man's face with a beard and white hair, in the clouds, sort of like Santa Claus. In the next painting I've been told there are fighting beasts with gnashing teeth, eyes, and guns. But then, someone else saw flowers and stars.

Like Rorschach blots, when it comes to pareidolia, state of mind seems to have a lot to do with what one does or doesn't see.

For fun, here are some links to more obvious examples:

Martian Face

Monkey Tree

Skull Flower

Small Boat on the Great Marsh

Small Boat on the Great Marsh ©2014 Katherine Kean
oil on linen 6 x 8 inches

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I seem to be doing a lot of marsh related work lately. Earlier stages of this painting can be found here - the sketch, and here - the underpainting and initial color layers.

Purchase information available here: Small Boat on the Great Marsh.