Plein Air Painting~ In Search of Pattern
Terrace at Central Park by W M Chase
~
The selection and arrangement of pattern is an essential skill of the artist. The process requires a sensitive eye, the ability to see abstraction. An understanding of dividing a picture plane into a pleasing distribution of shapes of differing value is the motivating force. Seeking and implementing pattern is a quest of the landscape painter who work from observation of Nature.
~
Gathering small pencil studies in 3-5 values are a good way of practicing what my teacher called, “spotting.” This expression evoked in me the idea of butterfly wings and their riveting markings. As time went on I better understood pattern to be interlocking puzzle pieces holding a picture together.
There is something visually satisfying about sensitively orchestrated pattern. Pictures built on this kind of design seem to resonate deeply. Whatever effect that a particular arrangement calls forth, competent patterning always furnishes a sense of wholeness.
~
Melody Phaneuf is an award-winning Boston Artist, well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. She has exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists in Boston, MA; Patricia Hutton Galleries in Doylestown, PA; and North Shore Arts in Gloucester, MA.
Phaneuf lives and paints landscape in Gloucester, MA and maintains a studio at Fenway Studios in Boston, where she paints and holds workshops continuing the Boston School lineage.
Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.
Make Your Life a Work of Art~
Commission a Painting
Shop Online
Visit Fenway Studios
Art Instruction
facebook
twitter
pintrest
Above~ Landscape compositions in pencil from the sketchbook of Melody Phaneuf
~