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, Silas Thompson’s “Wintertide Creek.”
This painting has a Japanese notan feel to it with the strong division of lights and darks. The viewer’s eye is also led in with the large shapes breaking up into smaller shapes. Although a jumble of undefined trees, the artist has given detail to a chosen few. The attention to these trees helps to establish order out of chaos and lets our eye rest on shapes as they move around the painting.
The triangle in the stream draws the viewer into the painting. http://www.artphi.com