Friday, March 13, 2015

Joan Applebaum Art Goes Green - Arches and Shadows from County Tipperary


It's Day 13 of my blog "Going Green" in honor of St. Patrick's Day! 

Today's painting comes to you from County Tipperary. In fact it's the abbey just down the road from the Rock of Cashel. A few days ago my blog featured Blarney with Bridget, the Holy Cow who wanders the ruins of this abbey.

Today I am sharing a watercolor based on some of the photos I took when wandering the ruins. When I was walking around the abbey I felt like I was lead by the late afternoon sunlight drifting in and out of the arched windows and doorways. Everywhere I turned I found another group of arches,  sunlight and shadows to show me the way. Although the abbey had been deserted for years a spiritual quality remained. The memory of following the sunlight through the ruins stays with me even till this day.

Painting the Light

When it came time to paint this scene I remembered the light and shadows and the arches. I sketched the architecture based on one of the photographs but used arbitrary color to paint a textured watercolor  background. Details of the architecture were added over the background using darker value to indicate depth. The sunlight is of course apparent in the lighter, brighter values. The really bright yellow areas played against the blues and purples add drama to the scene. The architecture is only partly articulated lending an overall ghostly feel to the piece.

"Going Green"

Since March 1st I have been posting Irish themed art on my blog. If this is your first visit to my blog and you like the Irish theme you might want to look at some of the posts from previous days. 

Joan Applebaum Art Goes Green - Blarney with Bridget
I will be posting Irish paintings till March 17.

Slainte!

Visit my website Windy Hill Studio www,windyhillstudioarts.com for more samples of my art.















No comments:

Post a Comment