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. 

 

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.