We Three Paint-First Installment

We three, sisters Janet and Valerie along with their mother Montie (Jomomma), went walking in Sabino Canyon a few months ago. Along with some great landscapes, we experienced some friendly critters and then there was a group of people set up under the ramada with their easels…an “en plein air” group. En Plein Air refers to the practice of painting outside in nature instead of inside a studio. It was sort of established during the age of Impressionism (Monet, etc.) and is now trending to be the “thing”. We see these adventuresome folks all over the place. These artists set up in front of decorative doors in the Tucson Barrios, at the rim of the Grand Canyon, AND all places in between. We found ourselves talking about our own inspirations for painting (we are all three water media artists) and decided that it would be fun to take a photo as a reference and each of us paint our interpretation of it. Voila! “We Three Paint” was born. Not only did we decide to exercise our imaginations and our painting skills, but we also thought it would be fun to publish the results.

So, here it is, the first effort of the “We Three Paint” ensemble! This is a photograph taken during a solar eclipse. The shifting light was reflected onto the sidewalk and filtered by the leaves and branches of a tree. How did the three artists do with this one?

Here are the interpretations, left to right:

Janet-The phenomenon of the solar eclipse intrigues me. The light is being blocked but shows up in the shadows. It’s interesting, therefore, that in order to paint this picture I blocked the darkness…lifted the shadows to expose the light. Watercolor on cold press watercolor paper.

Jomomma-I wanted to capture the texture and shape of the reflections on the pavement. I wanted some color from the sky to show through. The shapes seemed to me to be in motion, so I hoped to capture the fluid movement of the eclipse. Acrylic on Yupo paper.

Valerie-It is my photo that we used for this project…I was in Durango Colorado when this solar eclipse was happening and as I noticed how particular the shapes looked…almost like a pattern of multiple crescents scattered everywhere. Then, in the cool of the shade, I saw an enormous bird with its wings stretched out wide and long. It reminded me of a pattern you might see in Scandinavian folk art. This is when I took the picture that we used as a reference for our paintings. It turned out that the bird I saw was made up of hundreds of crescent shaped shadows which were caused by the sun shining through the leaves of the trees. Once we settled on this photograph, I knew what I wanted to paint…and like most paintings of mine the vision and the end product are a bit different but still it embodies my original impression. Mixed media— acrylics and watercolors on textured board.