A Return to Bridges

After more than a month dedicated to greeting cards, I was curious to see if they would influence my bridges. One thing I craved was the return to brush strokes and texture. I still want to keep the composition simple.

Two More Cards and That Makes Ten !

Seals!
With kisses!
Happy Anniversary!

Flocks of Love

For your Birthday!

A Fancy Sheep

You're Baa- utiful!

A Father's Day Card

Happy Father's Day Deer Father!

A New Card

Happy After Labor Days!

A new card inspired by Kallie Christine.

A Breakthrough!

                                                                Happy Birthday Foxy!

Congratulations!

Roaring with pride!

Congratulations!

And best wishes on your next phase.

                                                                      You're a hoot!

                                                           
                                                                        Celebrate!

After a month of work, a breakthrough! Ironically, the transformation to simplicity was hard work! I wanted to create an abstract, fun, simple, and sophisticated style that is flexible enough to work in for a long time. Now let's hope Recycled Paper Greetings thinks so too!

Greeting Cards

A new style evolved this week. I've been trying to create my own kind of abstract-realism. Appropriately, The Phoenix came first. One more week of greeting cards then back to bridges!

Another Week of Greeting Cards

This week, I continued my lessons with Adobe Illustrator. The program is so easy to use that my cards were soon over processed! I'm trying to keep the painterly effects while designing professional looking cards. I'm working toward a marriage of art and design.

A Week of Learning Adobe Illustrator

We  just returned from 10 days in Puerto Rico. This week, I'm teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator to make greeting cards. I love it! It's a very user friendly program. 
I found that when printing the cards, my painterly effects were lost. I edited them out and created new borders in the Illustrator program which printed nicely.

A Week of Greeting Cards

Last week, I applied watercolor techniques to my oils. This inspired me to work with watercolor again. I found a few greeting card companies that accept freelance submissions. I filled the cards in an interesting way with  lively negative spaces for text. I wonder if this will creep back into my oil paintings?
Next, I'll think of interesting, inspirational, happy text.

Taughgannock Creek Bridge, Route 89, Ithaca, NY 2

My quest for a looser style continues. I am in search of  simple composition, texture, dark vs. light, larger brush strokes while maintaining the calm quiet emotion I like to portray.Why? I don't know. All I do know is that the Art Muse is pushing me in a new direction.

Portage Bridge, Letchworth State Park, NY 2

Today, I was much more successful at a loose style. I used the drawing for this bridge that I did a few weeks ago and played with my oils as if they were watercolors.

Suspension Bridge, Ithaca, NY

This is a walking bridge near Cornell University. Last week, my husband ran in the Boston Marathon and my daughters, father, brother and niece were in  Boston to cheer him on. Some paintings paint themselves. This one had a struggle being born.

A Bridge in Ithaca

 I took the picture of this bridge while visiting family in Ithaca. My sister-in-law drove me on a wonderful photo trip of bridges. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the name of it and I can't find it online. I added spring green in anticipation. It is still snowing in Western New York.

Exchange Street Bridge, Lockport, Ny

This vertical lift bridge spans the Erie Canal in Lockport, NY. It was built in 1915. I imagined it in early morning fog.

Taughgannock Creek Bridge, Route 89, Ithaca, NY

This stone arch bridge was built in 1926. It spans Taughgannock Creek just before it joins Cayuga Lake in Central New York in the Finger Lakes. We drive over it on Route 89 every time we go to Ithaca.

Portage Bridge, Letchworth State Park, NY

The iron and steel trestle bridge was built in 1875. At 820 feet long and 250 feet high it spans the Genesee River above the upper falls. When my husband and daughter and I hiked the distance of the park, we walked out to the center of the trestle! It was scary and I've climbed  many mountains!

Peace Bridge, Buffalo, NY

The Peace Bridge connects Buffalo, NY with Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada. I added chop to the water to liven the scene up.

Railroad Bridge, Buffalo, NY 2

This beautiful bridge can be seen from the I-190 in Buffalo. It spans both the water and the road. Even though it is a very large bridge, it seems delicate to me. I imagined it in a golden sunrise and added some movement with the car.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

In writing, a story without character development is called slight. In painting, a painting with only one place for the eye to travel is slight. In this painting the bridge and the interesting sky are on the same picture plane and the foreground is underused. I rushed into painting the feeling of the rainy afternoon with the fading  warm pink glow of the setting sun before I solved all of the design problems. This picture can be saved!
How can I strengthen the design?
 I want to entice the viewer's eye to the foreground with an interesting shape or shapes. I harmonize my paintings  through repeating shapes and colors. I  repeated the triangular shapes of the bridge's trusses in  the large triangular shape of the road and the smaller elongated triangular shape of the  sidewalk.  The irregular cubed shaped buildings repeat the outside shape of the bridge  How can I can add more triangular shapes? It would also help to add some X's. What  is interesting,  triangular that I can put in the foreground to move the viewer's eye around my picture world? The simple solution is to add the reflection of the bridge.
Now I will see if I can make this painting beautiful.

In the final version, I added the reflection. I also darkened the lower corners both to give the illusion of depth and to keep the eye from moving into the corner. I also lightened the background trees to add depth.

A Collection of Bridges

Main Street Bridge, Penn Yan

 16" X 20", oil on canvas

Main Street Bridge, Rochester, NY

 16" X 20", oil on canvas, custom walnut frame

Ford Street Bridge, Rochester, NY 

16"X20", oil on canvas, custom cherry frame

Pont du Rennes Pedestrian Bridge, Rochester, NY

 16" X 20", oil on canvas, spalted maple frame

Stone Arch Walking Bridge, Seven Springs

 16" X20", oil on canvas, custom walnut frame

Railroad Bridge, Rochester High Falls

 11" X 14",  oil on linen canvas, custom walnut frame

My husband creates these beautiful custom frames for my paintings. 

Stone Arch Walking Bridge, Seven Springs

When my aunt lived at Seven Springs, she called it her Golden Pond. I imagined this bridge at dawn and instead the pond wanted to be silvery. I took the liberty of enlarging the pond to make it more atmospheric.

Main Street Bridge, Penn Yan

This beautiful stone arch bridge was built in 1880.  I imagined it just before sunset.

Pont du Rennes Pedestrian Bridge, Rochester, NY

This bridge is in the quaint Brown's Race District in Rochester, NY. You can view the High Falls from it. I worked hard to imagine what this bridge would look like at night.

Two Bridges, Penn Yan

I just loved this building. I painted it the color that it is, a wonderful greeny-gray.

Railroad Bridge, Rochester High Falls

This is a view from the Pont du Rennes Pedestrian Bridge. I was lucky that a train was passing over!

Ford Street Bridge, Rochester, NY

I love the way this historic bridge looks at twilight.

Main Street, Rochester, NY

This beautiful bridge in downtown Rochester is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

I-90 Buffalo

I wanted to express the beauty of a sight we take for granted.

Morganville Bridge

  This one of two bridges in Morganville.