Once Again For Something Completely Different

Layered Levels of Cool, 10 x 10" Acrylic on Canvas by Tracy Feldman

I have been painting so many realistic paintings recently that I decided to dip my toe back into abstraction.  For the basis of this piece, I used a painting I did several years ago of the closeup of dark clouds at sunset.

     In the original photo, I loved the swirling darks and bright shot of orange against a shot of clear, mid-range blue sky.  The bright orange hue was created by the late day sun glinted off the edge of the super-dark clouds.  However, when I got the image down on canvas, the resulting piece just didn't click.

    So, when I was looking to do a layered abstract, I loved the idea of using this painting as the base for something completely new.  By covering sections of the work with tape, I preserved some of what I liked about the earlier piece -- the color and value (dark vs light) contrasts -- while creating a new image on top of the piece.

     In Layered Levels of Cool, I used tape to create a set of very sharp "lines" on top of the original.  Then, I swirled cooler, lighter, whites, greens, and yellows over that.  Lifting  the tape allowed me to recapture the very dark, cool blues, and the very warm orange of the sunset-lit cloud edge.  I then went back and put some of the mid-depth colors over a few areas of tape-created "lines" to mess with the depth perception even more.

     I really like this piece, and hope you do too.  One of the things I really like about it that isn't obvious from this photo is that the original canvas is an inch and a half deep so the image pours over the sides

    As usual, I'm posting this little painting for sale on my Daily Paintworks gallery and auction site.  Check it out there if you might be interested in this piece. I'd love to hear your thoughts too.