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Monday, January 4, 2010

An Experiment

The other day my microwave oven died. No tears! It lived a long life and served me well.  I don't mourn its death, I celebrate its life.  In that spirit I got out my home autopsy kit and ripped it open.  Inside was this beautiful blue fan.  In perfect working order and in no way responsible for his/her death.  So I thought I should paint it with one of its favorites things, a yellow onion.  These 2 paintings are not the final paintings, they are explorations as to how I may go forward.

Since they are of the same subject, it seemed a great opportunity to experiment with my approach.  This is not a perfect control, one has a more scratchy quality (more pronounced in reproduction), while the other has impasto due to a repurposed panel. Also, the compositions vary.  But I wonder if even with these differences there is something people respond to.


Do you prefer one over the other for some reason not expressed above?  Let me know what you think.


Click on the images to make them bigger.

4 comments:

  1. Rick I like the bottom one better. In the top the Microwavw jumps out too much. Also the onion is more in line with the bottom of the microwave in the bottom one.

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  2. Thanks for the insightful comment John. I'm new to blogging and haven't figured it all out. So can I ask you how you posted this response? I just found it today, but you posted it several weeks ago. It seems to have come to me on a different path than my other comments.

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  3. Hi Rick, This blog is great. Thanks for posting it. I prefer the composition and fan in the upper study, but the onion in the lower. I think the softness of that onion contrasts better with the metal of the fan.
    Happy painting,
    Rebecca

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  4. Hi Rebecca, I agree, the onion in the 1st seems to have to much contrast(to hard)and to fussy. But I am starting to think the comparison is unfair because one feels more finished than the other. I may try this experiment again with two paintings on equal footing.

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