Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The Balance of Day and Night (5"x7")






5 comments:

gregg said...

Dustin, awesome talent. Mesmerized me.
Good luck on the ARC.
you're the first I've seen to have Google Checkout on your site. Cool!

Louis Boileau said...

You do great work!

grainne said...

I think this is an unusual and crazy composition. That's why I really like it.

Anonymous said...

The piece would be greatly improved if the color from the background was merged into the right side of both forms

Dustin L. Boutwell said...

This painting was set up for two reasons.

1) the cup seemed to represent a starry night sky and the orange is the sun. I was interested in playing with the idea that one cannot exist without the other. The darkness allows the light to be and vise-verse. They have a mutual agreement to coexist, they've struck a "balance".

2) The other idea I was pushing was "simple geometry". My goal was to break down the objects into their most simple forms, yet still maintain a sense of reality in the overall feel of the still life. It started with a diagonal that cut the background in half--two triangles. Then I inserted a rectangle--the shelf. Upon this sits a square--the cup. Upon the square, I placed a circle--the orange. This is the simple geometry of the picture, the structure. As I worked on the painting, I was trying to hold onto these shapes, retaining their integrity. In order for me to accomplish this I felt I needed to sacrifice a bit of dimension. Maybe I went too far. I agree that floating background color into the turning planes unites the picture and turns the forms, but separation and distinct shapes was my goal. I wanted the cup to be a square more than a cylinder and the orange to be a circle more than a sphere. I hope I'm explaining myself clearly. It was just an idea, something to contemplate as I painted, maybe it wasn't completely successful. Let me know what you think. Dustin