Tag Archives: Creativity

The Composition of the Matisse Painting of The Dance Influenced my Blue Iris Painting

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Studying Art History seeps into your memory. Countless visits to the many museums and galleries that New York City has to offer has crept into my subconscious. This lifelong study has taken me through so many happy surprises as well as quite a number of dead ends.

Often Artists are asked who their influences have been for their Art style. Trust me,  never would I have answered Matisse. I’ve never appreciated his sketchy use of paint, his lack of detail and apparent lack of a “finished” quality to his work.

And then, when I least expected it, I reimagined Matisse’s iconic painting, “The Dance”.  Using flowers from my own garden, I picked up the exuberant rhythm that makes his work such a delight. This work is so light, buoyant and a wonderful interpretation of what spring means to me.

As I was creating the composition of Irises I remember somewhere, behind my eyes, trying to make the circular floating connections of the frilly irises that was suspended somewhere in my memory. I have stood so often in front of the Matisse painting at the Museum of Modern Art, loving the composition while not liking the paint quality. I’ve returned so often to view that painting in the original hoping to find what I missed.

I absorbed his painting just by being there and looking. And looking again. And again…Mary Ahern Artist and Henri Matisse Painting Composition

“…man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots,
whose flower and fruitage is the world…”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mary Ahern Artist - Mixed Media Painting - Light Blue Iris in the Garden

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Digital Printing Has Killed the Limited Edition Print.

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The historic use of limiting editions of prints was during a time when prints were made from art carved or drawn onto stone, wood or other surfaces that degraded with use. As more impressions were made the surface wore out and the image became less crisp. Limiting the quantity of the printing run helped to control the quality of the print and of course the value.

Digital printing does not suffer from this problem since there is no degradation in resolution, or crispness, from one print to the next. In fact, what can happen as technology evolves and equipment gets better and faster, later prints may be of higher quality then original prints made years earlier in the cycle.

New Technology Offers New Forms of Creativity

So how do I offer my customers a solution to their desire for a unique piece of my Art rather then the Open Edition pieces I generally offer?

red-rose-custom

Custom Art Work Created Just For You

Custom Editions brings my customers into a collaborative effort in the artistic process of helping me to create a unique Art Work specific for their home or office design ideas.

Here’s how:

You select a piece of Art from my array of Standard Digital or Traditional Paintings.

  1. I can print your selection on different surfaces like Fine Arts Paper or Canvas.
  2. I can put different finishes on each canvas print, i.e. Matte, Semi-Gloss or Gloss.
  3. My standard work is designed in a 3×4 aspect ratio, i.e. the height to width relationship. I can customize the composition to fulfill specific sizing.
  4. I can print at any size that would work for the space you have in mind. Super-size up to 64 inches and mini-sizes for grouping.
  5. I can customize the colors, most particularly, the backgrounds, to suit your design ideas.
  6. I can combine traditional paint with your digital print to make a truly one-of-a-kind Art Work.
  7. I can customize framing or do away with framing altogether using the Gallery Wrapped canvas style.

If you can think of it I can probably do it.

Let’s get started on your Custom Editions collaboration. Visit my website for additional information.

Call me, Mary Ahern at 631-757-9459

Or email me at mary@MaryAhernArtist.com

Let’s make Art together!

______________________________

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Dicentra spectabilis

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Dicentra spectabilis vignette

Dicentra spectabilis vignette

Isn’t that a fantastic name? Dicentra spectabilis. It just rolls out of your mouth in a lilting singsong kind of rhythm doesn’t it? I love to say it quietly under my breath as I walk around my woodland garden in May. Not too loud so as to scare the birds and the neighbors (and myself for that matter.)

I love their color pink. I have some white ones, , but the pink ones are just so luscious. They reseed very freely for me and I’m able to reposition the offspring into springtime vignettes.

Dicentra spectabilis close-up

Dicentra spectabilis close-up

When I bought this property in 1989 there was one plant of Dicentra native here and I’ve managed over time to spread the wealth around my own garden and also with other gardeners. What a treat!

I don’t mind that they die back in the summer because it gives me another planting opportunity but some of the holes they leave behind can be very BIG planting opportunities…all the more opportunity for creativity to kick in.

I made a Digital Mixed Media Painting, which I call, “Dicentra Necklace”. I think of these joyful little gems in my garden, decorating the light greens of spring with their pink heart shaped “jewelry”.

Dicentra spectabilis necklace by Mary Ahern

Dicentra spectabilis necklace by Mary Ahern

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White Daffodils

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Entry Garden DaffodilsI have a number of varieties of White Daffodils growing in my garden but I don’t feel that I ever have enough. Since I am over run by squirrels I try to focus away from crocus and my beloved tulips. (After all, both my parents were born in Holland!) Squirrels consider the bulbs as an entrée and the flowers, if they arrive, as delectable garnish but they leave my daffodils alone.

The abundant shade in my garden causes challenges to many of my daffodil plantings but I still crave the color in early spring. One of the fun parts of designing gardens is figuring out how to hide the declining leaves on the daffodils as they absorb the chlorophyll for next year’s growth.

I’ve been known to hide them using daylilies, Siberian iris and ornamental grasses. I’ve stopped braiding the leaves since it seems so demeaning to their dignity.

I created a Digital Mixed Media Painting from one of these white daffodils. I love the way daffodil leaves have a slight twist to them. One of things I kept in mind when composing the piece is that the stem is offset where it enters the back of the flower, unlike a tulip which is a straight up vertical.

Another issue is making sure that I paint the shadows different from when the “light” hits the round stem vs. when it hits a flat leaf.

You can see this Single White Daffodil in my Store. I created various sizes for purchase. I think it has a rather heroic feel to the composition.

Single White Daffodil by Mary Ahern

Single White Daffodil by Mary Ahern

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First Oil Painting Classes

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After my introduction to creating art by Jon Gnagy, I decided to take painting classes. The local YMCA where I lived in Queens, NY offered classes on Wednesdays so I signed up, made my first foray into Jerry’s Artarama art supply store with my shopping list in hand. How dizzying to be exposed to so many wonderful and exciting things and widgets and colors and brushes and paper and canvas. Oh the possibilities!

And that began my addiction to art supplies.

I bought small tubes of Grumbachers, some brushes, canvas boards and mediums. We were instructed to bring some pictures from calendars or cards that we could use to copy. I still remember the feeling of holding those brushes for the first time and how transforming it was for me. The brushes felt like an extension of my arm. Like they were physically a part of me. Life altering is too mild a description of the experience.

My favorite brush was so small it was about the size of an eyeliner brush and I used it to do most of my painting. I loved the tight control it gave me and how it allowed me to do fine details. I guess it allowed me to “stay in the lines” like I’d done for years in my coloring books. It was comforting and familiar.

I still have those early paintings. The second oil painting I ever did I copied from a placemat I borrowed from a neighbor. I so loved the image, not knowing at the time that that particular still life was representative of Dutch still life painting. I had not formal knowledge of art history but, being Dutch, and having spent time in Holland as a child I had been exposed to the art hanging in the homes of my extended family. That still life image moved me.

Still life images still do. I find them serene, calming, introspective, and contemplative.

Still LIfe with Peaches by Mary Ahern

Still LIfe with Peaches my second oil painting

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