GALLERY
Text Descriptions
Snow on the Prairie
This is a typical scene from the Midwest in winter. A farm house sits amidst the flat landscape. The center ground is of withered crops in the field and snow in the foreground. Pink light tinges the old farm house, sky and snow and sets the time of day as just before dusk. The light is used to warm the bleakness and cold of Midwest winters.
Fishing Below the Falls
This painting focuses on the scale of the landscape. The small figure fishing is there to give the viewer a reference to gauge the size of the trees. Everything from trees to rocks dwarfs the human form of the fisherman. Clearly, the artist is focused on the grandeur of nature.
The Rocky Shore
The rocks jut into the water and the water rushes toward the rocks creating a visual tension in this piece. It is clear that these rocks have been worn into a certain roundness by years of exposure to the persistent water beating at them. The rocks in shades of brown offer a warmness to balance the cool blue of the sky and green of the trees.
Shadows on the Beach
The rounded shore and the deep purple shadows meet to the right of center in this composition to create a dynamic tension. The figures picnicking on the beach find the warmth of sun and provide scale for the rest of the landscape.
Splash On the Rocks
Our cover for this issue employs a full pallet of warm and cool colors arranged in a composition that is both tight and dynamic. The fluidity of the water and the violence with which it crashes against a large rock just off shore contrasts strongly with the way water puddles gently on the rocks in the sand at the lower portion of the composition.
The Threatening Sky
This monochromatic study of a barn with lean to captures those times when the world is one color. The motion of the cloud in the sky offers a strong contrast to the stillness of the landscape below.
Quincy #1
Seen from the bottom of a hill this mine shaft shows the unusual form that buildings take when function is the dominant consideration. The steep roofs and interesting angles make the building look like the prairie equivalent of the skyscraper. The mechanicals form an interesting pattern of line on the right hand side of the picture. The blue sky offers balance to the basically warm toned structure.
Quincy #2
This piece appears to explore the geometry of architecture on a grand scale in the midst of the open and barren landscape. The building fills the frame and dwarfs nature. Again the dominant tone is warm browns. "While it looks like a fantasy structure, I assure you the angles and the gables are rendered accurately," says the artist.
High Water
This piece emphasizes the fluidity of water rushing violently in the wake of a storm. The motion is rendered in the coolness of blues and the warmth of ochre and yellow. These are complementary colors and offer a strong harmony to the composition.
A Face in the Rocks
This monochromatic study of rocks shows a reflection of the landscape in water at the bottom of a gorge. The boundaries of the pool have a profile of a face hidden in it.