art heroes

My painting instructer from RISD, John Gibson, always taught that an artist needed to periodically find a new art hero in order to stimulate new creativity. To say that I have recently found a few is quite the understatement. Discovering the modern world of realist art has introduced me to a plethora of highly skilled artists all with the capacity to render life with striking, yet graciously believable paintings. One of my current faves is NY artist Camie Davis. She was a student of Jacob Collins and now teaches at his Grand Central Academy of Art in New York City. Her painting of Carolina (left) displays apt understanding of form within shadow. I love how the light passes from the highlight in the forehead and undulates throughout the features on the face before it reaches that peak of dark shadow right under the cheek bone and then finally falls into the shadow- and what a shadow it is! The mere composition of this painting is enough to satisfy my artistic research- the way the picture is broken between the shadow and light and how it reads in that beautiful spiral taking your eye right to where the lighted forehead meets the vacancy of the background. Perfect composition. And of course the colors, that wonderful passage of greenish flesh is such an important midtone. It carries your eye around the form and demonstrates how as light passes over a mass, it undulates between warm and cool tones. This passage is the break before the shadow. I love it. Below is another of Davis' paintings again demonstrating her remarkable composing abilities.