Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Post Pierre Bonnard in Adobe Illustrator self-portrait


The question is, what to take from Bonnard? His boisterous colors, centering around a clementine orange? His willful yet selective disregard of perspective? His devouring of pattern? The way the scene is not clear for awhile, things resolve from a blur into a disquieting narrative hint. His relegating people to outlines, unresolved shapes, on the edges?

Well... working in adobe illustrator, I don't have the benefit of oils, and my "rules" forbid shadows, gnarly brush tips (increases file size too much), and gradients. I'm looking for an illustration style and process that I can use for sales to stock houses. So I picked color. And paint outside the lines. Bonnard it is not. But maybe more trips to the museum are necessary.

The show, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is worth seeing. So many of the paintings were new to me. And he lived a long long life, painting, drawing, all the time. These are from his later years. Deprivations of war and loss and age add gravity to the flood of color. Impressionism all grown up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're so good.

Caitlin Allen said...

These are terrific! I LOVE what you're doing. I want to see more! Keep up the great work.