Art in a Domestic Setting

                       Art in a Domestic Setting

Some art due to its large size wouldn’t fit in a domestic space.  Others are interesting, but not to see on a regular basis in your home.  Sculptures are pleasant, and scaled down might be appropriate.  But for most of us, an object that can hang on the wall is about right.  A manageable artwork, in or out of a frame, would be from 5 by 7 inches up to about 3 by 5 feet .

Many online sites sell art reproductions, some of which called giclee prints look very much like an original oil painting.  Foreign names can be perplexing so note that giclee comes from a French word for squirt, hence a giclee print is made by squirting ink with an inkjet printer.  Similarly, a chromogenic print is a just a photographic print, and a serigraph is a silk screen print. 

Some websites offer hand made paintings.  They allow you to choose from a wide range of famous original artworks, then the company will have an artist, for a reasonable price, make a hand painted copy of the original for you.

I have a story with regard to a quality hand made copy of a painting.  I live near a public library that realized it owned an original oil painting of great value done by a famous artist.  They commissioned a top quality hand painted copy, done directly from observation of the original.  The copy is prominently on display in the library and looks beautiful  ‒ likely better than the original.  The library then sold the original for a large sum of money that allowed them to build two large and elegant wings onto the library, doubling its size.

In this chapter we will look at art that we could picture on a wall at home.  Some works will be simple enough that a person in your family could make a satisfying copy, not gallery size or quality, but still quite pleasant.  Remember, for many abstract geometric works, the idea of the work is more than half the job.  

Regardless of making copies, I hope you enjoy our tour.  If you like the art we show, you can always find more, by doing an image search using the artist’s name, for instance: Ralston Crawford art. 

    Semi Abstraction

Please look at the painting called Harbor Scene by Ralston Crawford.  It is one of his watercolor paintings from the 1940s through 1950s, many of which show a rising slope in the foreground.  We will ask ourselves a long series of questions to produce artistic insights.  The questions are all independent so you can skip around if you like.  Here we go.

 

Do you notice anything unusual about the sky?   Do the masts or booms on the different ships relate to each other?  How?  Are the two ships in the background at the correct height?  Correct for the water position or correct for making a good picture?  If all the ships were at the same height would it be as visually interesting?  What could the strong curve in the foreground on the dock represent?  Is the amount of curvature believable for a practical purpose?  for an artistic purpose?

There is a black stanchion on the near right for tying ropes to.  Would it be a better picture with it not there?  or with two or three of them?  Does the muted deep pink center area on the dock relate to other colored things in the picture?  which things?  

How many kinds of gray do you see?  where are they?  Are they warm or cool grays?   Which direction is the light coming from?  Which objects have shaded sides?  Are all the shaded sides equally dark?  Why so?  Do any of the objects have cast shadows?  Should objects have cast shadows?  Why or why not?  What about that brown wall on the left ‒ good, bad?  Does that particular shade of brown look like the sun is shining on it?  The painting has a border.  What do you think of it?  Remove it, make it wider, change its color?

What does Crawford gain by having that strongly rising foreground, kind of tipping in our direction?   Crawford said his paintings always started from an observed scene.  How far from the observed scene do you think Crawford came in making this picture?  Was he successful?  If this picture were to hang in your house, where would you put it?  Yes ‒ you’re allowed to say the basement, garage, or attic if you like.   

                                                        Sharon Hall
            Sharon Hall is a British artist. Please look at her work called Zig Zag. You could make a copy of any size or colors to suit your space. Notice, the painting doesn’t have symmetry. I recall a piece of advice in making art that applies here. Design so that all four corners of the artwork look different. Is that true in Hall’s painting?
            It is hard to not notice a resemblance to Nefertiti, the ancient Egyptian queen. It is hard to make a work so abstract as to be not comparable to anything. And why should that be a goal? I think it is reasonable to just want the work to be interesting and look good.
            Recall the true Nefertiti head piece gets wider further from the head whereas here the head piece has parallel lines. The parallel lines give a regularity and stability that contrasts with the rest of the lines in the figure.  A connoisseur of minimalism notices those details. Alternatively, you are free to think of the blue as water, perhaps a river, if it pleases you.

                            

            What do you think of the color choices?  Do they go with each other or clash? Could you make this picture with just two colors? with just one color? Making a painting with just one color seems impossible unless you can use texture. For instance, you could paint heavy horizontal strokes in the left region, then use vertical brush strokes for the center region, then go back to horizontal strokes for the right region. The visible strokes in different directions would distinguish the regions.