Tower Hill
For my friends on the east coast, I will be having a large show of work at Tower Hill School on 2813 West 17th Street in Wilmington, Delaware, during the month of October. The opening reception is Monday, October 2nd from 5:30 to 7:30pm in the Founders' Gallery.
The show will include still life paintings, portraits, and architectural landscapes. A tonalist portrait entitled The Four of Us that has been in the works all winter will be on display.
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Foreign Lands - 16"" X 20" - Oil on Panel
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Technical Section - The Tonalist Movement
The Tonalist Movement was comprised of a group of artists working in the 1880s. James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Robert Henri, and Dwight Tryon were tonalists. The movement is characterized by moody, atmospheric work and some say it was a reaction to the Civil War and was influenced by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. I like it because tonalist paintings make deliberate use of color and value to draw attention to the details an artist thinks are important.
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Harmony in Pink and Grey, Portrait of Lady Meux, 1881-1882, James Abbot McNeil lWhistler
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Whistler’s work is my favorite. In tonalist work much of the canvas is painted in a close value range, meaning there is little strong contrast between dark and light. Squeezing together a value range helps create mood and atmosphere in a painting. Whistler’s paintings are knit together by both dominant color and value. In the above painting he uses warm pinks and greys.
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Arrangement in grey and black No. 1, Whistler’s Mother, 1871, James Abbot McNeill Whistler
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In Whistler’s Mother, the dominant colors are cool greys and black. The one exception in the color scheme is Whistler’s mother’s face. Because her face is painted in warmer colors, it is an exception to the dominant cool blues and thus becomes the focal point to the painting.
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I believe that Andrew Wyeth was influenced by the tonalist techniques. His values are not squeezed together as tightly as many traditional tonalists were, but he often used a spare palette and warm and cool colors to emphasize important subject matter. In the above painting by Wyeth entitled Master Bedroom, you can see that most of the room is painted in cool blues, except the right wall (right next to the dog) where there is a bit of red in the wash. The dog, the subject of the painting, is painted in a subtle, warm yellow.
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The Four of Us - 43" X 45" - oil on Belgian linen mounted on panel
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The Four of Us is a tonalist painting of my three brothers and me. The painting is dominant in blues, with one exception, the flesh tones of our faces and my hands. I have kept the value of the painting consistently in the middle of the scale, while preserving an indication of the light source. I wanted a simple work that talks about our character through our faces alone. There is only one prop, the drawing on the table under my hands, the exception that emphasizes the rule.
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Little Guy for The Four of Us
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I stared with a “little guy” because the painting is large and I wanted to make sure I knew my path forward.
I used my favorite imprimatura, burnt sienna. It gives a terrific glow that sets off the cool blues painted on top of it. In the final painting, you can see a bit of it peaking out near the top, especially nearer to the light source. The blue background is all the more blue and cool because of its contrast to the warm imprimatura.
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A painting is never really done. Usually, one just has to stop at some point in the name of sanity. But this painting, because its subject matter, is close to my heart, and I will continue working on it after the show. Sanity will just have to take a back seat. I hope you will come see it at a pause in its unfolding at Tower Hill in October.
I will be at the reception on October 2nd and hope to get a glimpse of you.
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Have a wonderful Fall and please stay in touch by logging onto my site for my newest work or by following me on Instagram @elisezollerart If a friend has forwarded this newsletter to you, please sign up here to get new issues and to see previous ones.
Thank you for your interest and all the best, Elise
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