Art Center Information’s Golden Member, Texas artist Lynn Burton, sent us a letter. We felt it was helpful and informative enough to pass it on to our members.
Lynn: I once had a Poloroid camera that I used in the black and white mode to photo my stuff; that is, artwork or murals or signs. This was especially true when I was having trouble bringing the message or focal point out as it should be. Color was not always the answer…value was. The black/white contrast helps simplify the problem. Cameras weren’t around at the time, but we now know why all the great painters of yesteryear used the technique of drawing black and white charcoal or graphite before painting their pictures in color. It was getting the value right. Sometimes, it’s not what you put in…it’s what you leave out. In the words of one of my favorite art instructors, Paul Milosevich, “When in doubt…leave it out!” As great of an artist as Paul is, if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. When I create a composition, I live by the words of the great instructor. They’re my motto.
I try not to throw any of my photographs away because you never know when a new idea comes along and you find just what you’re looking for in your files. Take for example my paintings of horses running and prancing around.
I was in Dickens, Texas (a town about eighty miles northeast of Lubbock) around ten years ago. That’s how long the photographs I took that day lay dormant in the files. Anyway, I was painting a big road sign outside the city limits. The sign asked: Where in the Dickens is Dickens…and it had a great big ? -mark (question mark) at the end. Across the field past where I was painting was a bunch of horses. The exciting part was that at the end of the day the horses began dancing and prancing and playing against a red sunset like only this flat Texas prairie land can have. BAM! This was magnificent!…beautiful! I had to have a piece of this!
Some time ago, I read Art Center Information’s article on back lighting, and it reminded me of the dancing and playing horses from years before, and how the back lighting of the sun affected their image. I’d wanted to paint a picture of them, but had put it off, neglecting to do so. I dug out the photographs and began painting the picture of the red sunset and the horses dancing and prancing, as if they were doing it just for me. That…BAM!…feeling came back as if it were that day ten years before. Later, I liked the subject so much that I painted the horses dancing in the moonlight (seen above). I hardly think there is anything more beautiful as a subject as horses; especially, if they are showing action.
We thank Lynn for his letter, noticing the emotion in his description. We feel certain that concentration and emotion goes a long way to a masterful painting as these two on this page show. We’ve had the photographs of the two paintings for awhile, and we certainly apologize to Lynn for not sharing the letter that came with them with our audience before now. In the future we will be more responsible. Thanks again, Lynn.
You can check some of Lynn’s paintings out by clicking the link, and typing the name Lynn Burton in the search engine http://fineartamerica.com/
Also, check out the Burton Family gallery above.
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