My Painting from my Animals in Chairs series: "Ce n'est pas une chaise"
An orangutan portrays that the chair he is holding is not a chair, whilst being himself not on a chair nor being an orangutan.
When I did this piece for my animals in chairs series I wanted to play with the surrealist meta idea that was made popular by the artist Rene' Magritte in his famous painting "The Treachery of images", which is a painting of a pipe with the "Ce n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe)
Magritte was saying that images were in a sense lying, as this was not a pipe, "you could not stuff this pipe and smoke it" it retorted. And he claimed if he had written 'this is a pipe' he'd have been a liar.
In this vein I wanted the character in the work to hold a chair representing this isn't a chair, but as he is also an image which isn't an orangutan nor is he sitting on a chair.
I love to toy with ideals and have a bit of tongue and cheek in my pieces. I also thought it funny that an orangutan should be sitting in a club chair and holding out an impossibly tiny chair to the viewer as if to say, "Take a seat, please"
These pieces were also for me very much a study in colour. In many ways much of my work plays with colour. I am just drawn to rich or bright colours and find it can be an expressive part of a piece to a point that it, itself, becomes another character or subject in my work.
I often do a few studies in varying shades to decide what colour way I want to go. And of course, the joy of digital is such that were I to want to change out the colours, it could be done without affecting the integrity of the original piece.
Do you consider colour before you start an artwork or do you let the piece dictate the colour to you?
Are you drawn to art that is colourful, or do more subdued sublte monotones draw you in?
(my lovely divider designed by @atopy)
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From one chromaphile to another, your color palettes are always on point. I am curious, do you ever work in muted tones or b&w, 'just for the 'elluvit'?
I actually do black and white drawings fairly often and sometimes, my watercolour studies for my larger works are in a more subdued palette. Here are a couple of my black and whites from my cafe drawings.
Excellent! The café canines have just the right amount of drama. Are you planning on participating in inktober 2018? It's going to be so much fun.☺
I'm not sure a few years ago I did it and it's what spurred me onto my current state of drawing every day. I think it was 2015 and since then with very few exceptions, I have drawn every day. It was a wonderful lesson and habit I needed in my life.
Ah, another thing we share in common, that's nice :] Inktober planted the seed of habit within you? That is a remarkable ripple effect, awesome! If you decide to participate this year you will blow yourself out of the water, I just know it.
Although I don't post them much anymore, I'm still making sketches and doodles every day. A day without drawing is a day without sunshine.
So true. I mean I might participate simply because I often draw so it'd be easy to do so, only I am finding it harder and harder to go onto facebook. I used to post there everyday as part of my artist page, but now I find it hard to even open it up, it is just so much more fun on here and so much more friendly.
I know what you mean about effbee...steemit is lucky to have such a dedicated and talented artist in you, no lie ☺
Those pups are just so cute and real! :D Want to pet them right now ^-^
I will write more, but for now, I must go on a bike ride, before a deluge comes about from the heaven above. To be continued...
[Much Later]
...OK, I'm back. I love that extra-large monk is looking at his small-model chair, and the deepness that I cannot re-express here, yet DO appreciate very much. (OK, I can't resist..) It is a chair, but not a true chair, because it is an image rendition of such, and I am a Monk, but not really, because I am digital, in the reality only, of dda's mind, and now tablet screen. Did I get that right? Is there a 'right'?
And as importantly, do you put Puss or Monty in a chair, to draw these, or do these wonders just emanate from your amazing imagination. (I have a giant Foghorn you could rent, for $27.50/day--Foghorn SteemitLongAgo
Love your whimsy once more. And as for the idea of color and idea, though my world is very different, as I can only produce in photo and written word: Sometimes a photo triggers and idea, and others, an idea requires wandering about for an image to support it's being, or I have to make an elaborate settup in the yard, etc, to provide. Which is a LOT of fun too, coming up with something appropriate. And if not...the final stretch, in more than one sense, is to get out pencil, paper and ink pen, and try to draw something recognizable. Sometimes it works, sometimes we hope for a photo next time...but always, it is fun. My main motivatione' in life. Hope your Saturday is going very well.
I'm always sketching and doodling so I'll just keep a backlog of sketches I'll make from photos or things I might be watching on the screen or from animals in real life. etc and then it all just becomes an amalgam of things mixed in my head. Sometimes, I use my doll's house to set up little vignettes and photo or draw from that, it's all open fodder for the fingers and mind :)
You must be a day ahead of me, because for me it is only Friday, but maybe you dwell in some time vortex of your own making, or mayhap you are simply a figment of my own imaginings and even Steemit is just something I am dreaming, I mean come on , a social platform that pays you for likes? I must be dreaming :)
That sounds familiar, though in the sense of ideas and photos. Never know WHAT might pop up and be uselful. I love that you mess with the dollhouse. Maybe you should get a small hamster, and then watch him/her wander about in the house. Ideas galore.
And though I hate to burst your cosmic bubble, and fear I am actually quite real, though I'm often told, "get real, Dude", I think I must have written that LATE at night. On Friday before Saturday has dawned bright and whatever it was to be. Though that IS today, so I don't know....I HAVE been doing taxes, so that might explain a whole lot of my cranio up-endedness. We do tend to take this for granted, don't we...getting paid for talking and doing what we love. Someone pinch me. Though I have only been on this site, and thusly, don't really know what I speak of. But I DO know I love it. And obviously I like to write-talk a lot too.
I am hangover right now and I feel like that orangutan, heavy everywhere I sit.
I love the colors and the background!
I usually get driven by the painting and I don't plan the colors in advance :)
I've only been hungover a couple times and hated it so much just decided I'd not do it again. Boring, I know, but I really hated that feeling.
Well, feel better. Do you have a hangover cure? Like 'hair of the dog' as we say (which means drink a small bit of whatever alcohol you got drunk on) or just hot black coffee?
Water, loads and loads and loads of water.
I love how the drawings are so simple, yet very colorful!
Thank you. I usually do a more detailed pencil of the animal and chair, but then in this series I really wanted to play with colour and to have very obvious 'brush stroke' in this case many of these are done with digital oil pastel and I loved the patterning created when building up the layers of oil pastel. And the mix of 'ink' line just gave it a sort of pop feel that I felt joy from doing :)
Wow! great post and so nice painting.I like it and I appreciate you.
You are a good painter.Thanks for sharing this nice painting post.
Keep it up.
beautiful work , your style is so sweet , :)
Thank you so much.
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