Autumn Inspired Still Life

Indian Summer Songs
18x18
Sold

This painting was inspired during a walk through the forest to feed my chickens. The autumn light was a mellow gold that seemed to guild everything with the same dusty amber colour. I just stood there and smelled the fall air and enjoyed that gorgeous light, the mellow air, and the sound of aspen leaves flickering. It was a sublime moment which inspired a few golden toned paintings. It seemed right to include the cheeky blackbirds that visit our backyard pond in this painting of light and sunflowers. It's interesting that even though I'm not painting from life now light still influences my work.

New Website and New Paintings

You Can't Handle the Truth
30x36
Oil/Canvas
SOLD

Yes, this blog is black! I know some web designers and critics detest black blogs and websites but my work seems to look better on black so when I decided to build a new website I decided to take a chance on black. I wanted my blog to match somewhat so had to make the switch to black here too.

As well as being completely rebuilt my website has a whole new category of paintings which you can see at www.cindyrevell.com, click on oil painting then click on whimsical. My apologies for not providing a direct link to the portfolio but I have yet to figure out how to make the URL specific to a particular page.

After contemplating a completely new look for my website and analyzing a lot of website templates I finally chose Big Black Bag who seemed to have the greatest amount of flexibility with the design and type of packages available. In terms of ease, unless you choose a template and not manipulate it too much it's probably pretty simple but the greater the manipulating of the design the greater the amount of work involved. Nevertheless I like the ability to make more than a simple template change. Big Black Bag’s customer service is fabulous.

I'm continuing with these cat paintings and find it exhilarating to use my imagination and tell a bit of a story, to play with my favorite colors, to explore size, and see how loose I can get. The picture doesn’t seem very loose but in real life they are.

No, I'm not giving up still life but I'm truly enjoying these new paintings and have so many ideas that I just need to let it play out and see what comes of it. I've found that art I've done in the past, like the fast studies, my illustration work, and motifs I explored about 15 years ago have an influence on my work. I can see the still lifes and these new paintings perhaps getting a bit closer to one another. I am loving it.

Looking Back - Exploration in Art

Looking Back, 20x16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell

This last year saw years of exploration bear fruit. Experimentation is important to artists and by trying different mediums, styles, new color palettes, or unfamiliar subject matter we make discoveries that lend greater depth to what we are already doing or take us in new directions. I'm not giving up still life but I'm certainly enjoying exploring this new direction and indulging myself in working purely from my imagination and playing with color, pattern, and considering the symbolism of the objects in the paintings.

This first decade of the 21 century was a wonderful journey in my artistic life and what this next decade will bring I don’t really know but I’m certain that it will be no less exciting as the last. I hope this next decade is a rich one in your own artistic travels.