Livin' on the Edges

The edge of a painting is its frontier... where the artist negotiates his boundaries with the real world... where art begins and ends and where the eye enters and leaves the image. It determines, in an infinitely subtle number of ways, how you read a painting - which, unlike a book or a piece of music, has no pre-determined beginning or end. (Andrew Graham-Dixon)

Afternoon Fog • 16" x 16"  more

  Finding an edge, changing an edge, moving and sharpening- these are some of the many moves painters do with the places where the paint strokes live. On a recent trip Downeast to get some paintings done for my recent show, I encountered lots of fog and overcast, hazy skies. With plein air painting, the best approach is to paint whatever the weather is that day, never waiting until the "perfect" weather arrives. So fog painting became the theme of the trip. Fog is a subtle atmospheric condition, and so much of it created a chance to really study it. It is best created with a series of carefully controlled edges and wonderfully delicate color. Depicting the fog was a challenge to say the least! I have become really interested in edges and continue to play with the different uses of soft, lost, and crisp edge qualities.

  "Lost and found edges are an intrinsic part of any realistic painting that possesses that magic quality of atmosphere.  Essentially, and edge is the place where two areas of a composition meet or where a plane turns."  Albert Handell, Intuitive Composition

  A friend sent an email suggesting that I join the "30 in 30 Challenge" to paint a painting each day in September, along with a large number of other artists, all of which are posting these quick works online. The gauntlet was thrown down! I had to pick it up and run with it. (Mixed metaphor there.) My friend said doitdoitdoit. You know who you are.

  My 30 paintings are going to be a series of experiments with the qualities of edge. Day 3 is below, showing a play with lost areas and blended edges. Three lilies on the right side are melded into a mass of petals, requiring some thought to work out where each one begins and ends. The exact outline of the vase is only suggested. A feeling of the flowers nodding on the horizontal stems seems encouraged by the softening of edges.  

  If you want to see the 30 days of edge paintings, I'll be posting each one throughout September here.

Rubrum 2 • oil on paper •  7" x 14 • more

The other edges in a painting are, of course, the four outside edges that contain (or suggest) the end of the artwork. Whether or how a creator can affect those is another concern of making art.