– Jeanne Mackenzie reporting –
In this series, plein air painter and instructor Jeanne Mackenzie takes a look at new paintings by contemporary artists and points out why they succeed as painted images. This week, Sylvio Gagnon’s “Walking the Pooch.”
Lead Image: “Walking the Pooch,” by Sylvio Gagnon, acrylic, 8 x16 in.
This painting looked like it was enjoyable to paint. As with any palette knife painting, you have to feel comfortable with the inexactness of the painting tool and embrace some of those unintentional, inexact strokes. Either leave them there, or push them somewhere else. The identifiable human form and dog give the abstract image a more representational look while still hanging on to the spontaneous and impetuously fun element of a palette knife painting. Although the subject is about a walk in the woods, making those forms the same value and color as the trees makes it a painting about the architecture of the forest.
