Tag: Art

Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo

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The San Carlos Borroméo del Rio Carmelo Mission was founded at its present site in 1771 by Father Junipero Serra and was once the headquarters for the entire California mission system. For over 227 years, this mission has drawn many visitors and artists; and may be the most frequently described structure in California, whether it be with art or words. Many artists have drawn, photographed, painted, and carved it’s image. It’s location was selected by Father Serra in a magnificent area on the central California coast.

This photograph was one of twenty pictures that won a regional art contest at ArtistRising.com . It depicts the front side of the church at the mission.

Church Door at Mission San Carlos

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

Garden Paint

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Inspire someone to take up a creative hobby. It helps the mind focus on things that are important. One of those important things is the well-being of your mind and body. In the difficult times of your life, it’s very important to concentrate on your positive ideas and make them happen. This is a picture I made when I was experimenting and learning how to use Photoshop. I was also experimenting with the digital camera. I take a camera with me everywhere.

The light shines on the garden in various ways during the day. When I noticed that, I decided I needed to try and capture that look… that feeling. One thing leads to another and I started making a website. It all took a while to learn how to do all this. I read and practiced many days a week.

Now it’s part of me and I can’t picture myself ever quitting!

Garden Paint

Buy at AllPosters.com

 

 

Splashing Cannery Row in Monterey California!

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 “A Cannery Row Autumn” ~ photographic print by Lorrie Morrison

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This is a small section of the coastline along Cannery Row in Monterey, California. This is the area that was made popular by the famous writer John Steinbeck. You may know some of his books called “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Cannery Row”. This area is where captains of ships would stop on their way to San Francisco, one of the many areas where a mission was placed by Father Serra. Many people from other countries laboriously worked in the canneries and sardine  factories along the Cannery Row.

 

It was full of colorful characters in those days… and still is for that matter! The canneries are still there standing empty. Most were made into restaurants or hotels where many tourists are attracted to eat and stay. Farther down the road is Fisherman’s Wharf where all the fish were caught and brought in for the canneries. But those were days long ago.

 

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Water in Art Has Different Meaning Among Artists and Within Society

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Here is an interesting link from a university. The subject is “Water in Art”.

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/water/art.html

In the Impressionist Period, artists spent hours painting water. As the light changed during the day, so did the reflections and colors in the water. Van Gogh spent hours, all day, with his canvas and brushes, painting and repainting the changing colors of the water at the seaside. During this period in art history, the Impressionists looked at painting water in a scientific way, as they worked at learning how to blend colors to illuminate the picture, as a reflective effect.

At that time, this was not the standard teaching in art schools. Art schools preferred to teach the same methods of the past to art students advocating great detail and realism as the only art style to learn. They looked at the Impressionist painters as the “hippies” of that period and didn’t take them seriously. Art schools looked at these “renagades” as going down an unsuccessful path.

What they didn’t realize, or consider important, was that some of these “rogue” artists were experimenting with light and color in a scientific as well as artful style. They used water as their subject observing the effects of light on color wanting to duplicate that on canvas. In this process they continued to learn about color and how one color effects another.

Even the subject of “water” can hold different meanings among artists. Water can be viewed scientifically or purely asthetic.  Civilizations have always looked at water as “life-giving”.  Water has always been a very useful subject matter in this way because it is always important for artists to be able to express their ideas.  This allows people to see there is always a new way of looking at things. Water is a popular subject because it can be very interesting artistically, scientifically, and so important to life in general. We can view it as romantic, dramatic, serene, violent, inspiring,  a form of transportation, living quarters, and life-giving.

 

What is California Impressionism?

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California Plein-Air Artists 

In the early 1920’s Southern California was beginning to become populated with more and more people. Los Angeles was growing; the idea of suburbs was just getting started. The era of the French Impressionist period in Europe was trending down. California artists were becoming unhappy with development that was starting all around them. The idea of painting California scenery was starting to grow with a passion because artists did not want to give up this beautiful scenery to builders of factories and housing tracts.

These artists started to be called “California Impressionists”. They wanted to memorialize the beauty of what they saw in the Southern California landscape before the destruction began. That was the opposite of how the French Impressionists saw it. They embraced change in their paintings, but the Californians saw it differently. They embraced the notion of Old-World charm where there was none in many instances. By the 1930’s many small towns were springing up on the outskirts of Los Angeles with strings of electric lights and telephone lines.

Many artists didn’t express themselves publicly about how they felt about this change; but they oil painted pastoral farm scenes and seascapes along the coast that gives one a romantic and nostalgic feeling to look at them to this day. They believed in beauty above truth in order to escape from the unpleasant reality in the changes of the time. The serenity of orchards in bloom, tree-shaded farmhouses, and sunny hillsides gave their paintings a quality of escapism in the “land of the afternoon”.

In reality, for example, farms were mostly owned by corporate monopolies. It had become very difficult to own a family farm by then. The “serene” world of farm work was done mostly by immigrant workers who did back-breaking labor in the fields. The California Impressionists preferred not to see this reality in their paintings. They painted lovely scenes devoid of people. It is obvious they had a deep response to the sprawl that was around them.

Many landscape painters came out to paint the disappearing orange groves and the coastal mountains in droves. They attempted to memorialize what they saw by putting it on canvas. Their art was a direct response to the huge sprawl that would be coming and forever change California.