PAINTING THE LIGHT: Memories

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Memories

16x20, acrylics on canvas
SOLD

I painted this a few months ago and for some reason didn't like it, so I set it aside and didn't even look at it for a very long time. Recently, I pulled it out and defined the problem areas: the sky was too warm, the shadows weren't blue enough, and the grass was way, WAY too green. So I changed the colors and values without altering the composition of the painting. The improvement, to my eyes at least, was vast. Suddenly, I liked this painting I thought I hated. It's amazing what a few value and color changes can do to a piece.

So I took a couple of photos, posted it to Etsy, and last night it sold. This proves to me that no painting is hopeless. Even if you think it's finished, even if you think you don't really like it, sometimes you just need to let it simmer for a while before you go back and make the necessary changes so that suddenly that hated painting becomes a favorite.

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Original Paintings and Custom House Portraits for Sale

I paint colorful New England landscapes and cityscapes in acrylic. You can purchase my original paintings, small prints, and digital photography through my Etsy shops, CityscapesByBreton, ViridianArt, and Heartshots. You can also purchase prints of many of my paintings, in various sizes, at Fine Art America. The link below will take you directly to my shopping cart.

If you're in Maine, and want to check out my work up close and personal, you can find a number of my paintings in their summer home, at the Rock and Art Shop on Route 1A in Ellsworth.

Laurie Breton is a contemporary realism painter who has lived her entire life in Maine and who feels a close connection to the New England landscape. Her paintings of Maine country roads, New England cityscapes, and old houses reflect those deep roots.

Painting came to her late in life. As a child, she loved to draw. But it wasn't until her late thirties that she picked up a paintbrush, began creating art on canvas, and fell in love with painting.

She calls what she does "painting the light" because her paintings reflect her passion for light and shadow and their effects on the landscape. As a self-taught artist, Breton paints what she feels in her heart. Every scene she commits to canvas was chosen because it has struck some deep emotional chord in her, and she tries to infuse her work with that same strong emotion. It is her belief that if she is able to invoke that emotion in just one other person, she’s done her job well.

Over time, certain themes have emerged in her work. As we seek meaning in our busy lives, we tend to overlook the ordinary, the everyday, the familiar places and things that shape who and what we are. Even as we continually seek that elusive "something else," the overlooked ordinary—the innate sense of home—is the reality in which we live our lives. That reality is what Breton tries to paint. She hopes that people will see her art and feel that connection, that "I've been there" feeling, that belief that what she’s captured on canvas is a reality that's deeply and intimately familiar to them. She wants her work to take the viewer to that home-place each of us holds inside.

Her paintings are held in private collections in both the U.S. and abroad.

PAINTING THE LIGHT

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Memories

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