Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Chihuly vs. the Paparazzi

Gouache study of Dale Chihuly's "Sol del Citrón" by James Gurney
Last weekend at the New York Botanical Garden I sat near a gigantic glass sculpture, trying to figure out how to translate it into my sketchbook. Fortunately I had my gouache with me, and I captured the whole experience for you on this video. (Link to video on YouTube).



I needed a few figures for scale, so I showed some people holding up their cellphones. One of the breakthroughs was ignoring the actual color of the background and bringing in a red-violet color to set off the yellows of the piece.
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Book: Chihuly Garden Installations
My bestselling tutorial is called Gouache in the Wild

4 comments:

  1. Nice picture. It must be difficult to do a picture depicting a Chihuly. They are the equivalent of hysteria in glass. Years ago I saw his show in Pittsburgh. He was doing a lot of nesting shells then. I have to say, I don't prefer his work. But the notion of a gouache of one is daunting to say the least. Good one.

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  2. Spectacular sculpture, and great depiction of it. I know I'd be completely lost even before starting.

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  3. Loved seeing your process after seeing this piece in your sketchbook after the day at the NYBG. Love it! You've inspired me to try my gouache again.

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  4. Wow! That was great to see how you problem solved what looked to me impossible to paint. I spent 2 hours yesterday evening painting a lake scene en plein air with gouache and was feeling guilty for painting so slow so I was very reassured that you spent 3 hours on your lovely painting. I'm also struck by the difference in experience you had spending that time contemplating the artwork as you painted it compared to all the other viewers and their phones. I can't help thinking their reward would be greater if they just sat down and looked at the thing for a bit and let it linger in their memory. We like Chihuly here in Madison, Wi. As a midwesterner all I could think when I saw that was: what do they do in a hail storm?! Thanks so much for all the helpful and interesting posts re: painting with gouache.

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