Abstraction by Fire

I had been painting for a while in watercolor when I saw Andrew Wyeth's exhibition that included his fire paintings. He used masking and throwing the paint in such a wonderful way I was inspired to do some fire paintings of my own. My fire series caused me to experiment with abstraction and masking techniques. 

These paintings have over 30 layers of paint. Each layer covers the previous layer. The paint is splattered onto the paper for each layer. 

The Cave Fire painting combines my fire series with petroglyphs from the American West. 

 

Vicarious Exhibition: Fire Series

The Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art is hosting an exhibition of art by Veterans. I am one of the featured artists and veterans. These paintings from my fire series will be in the exhibition. The above watercolor is titles Cave Fire. The fire in this painting illuminates petroglyphs from the American Southwest. It is 18 x 24 inches. I used a layering technique which resulted in over 20 layers of color.

Fire Light, Acrylic on canvas.

Flame, watercolor on paper.

Fire Series

Here is another painting in my fire series.  This is a small painting, 8 x 12 acrylic on canvas.  I painted around the edge on this one, even putting my signature on the edge.  In the ground, I used some of the metallic paints from Golden paints.  This adds a great reflective quality to the an otherwise less important part of the painting. I am very happy with the many layers in the back ground.  There are parts of the back ground that are very dark violet in contrast with the bright orange flames.

Blazing Fire

This is one of the paintings in my fire series: blazing fire.  It is an acrylic painting, 18 x 24.  I started with a black and white under painting, then layered or glazed the colors on top.  It is a combination of realistic and abstract.  The logs are realistic and the flames are abstract shapes.  The cast shadows on the logs and rocks came out very well.