“Shell Fragment: Aperture”

Day 332 of my artwork retrospective

“Shell Fragment: Aperture” pastel on paper © Donna McVicar Kazo

I know what you’re thinking. Another broken shell painting in pastel!

Remember I’ve warned you that my Shell Fragments series eventually ended with 88 paintings. Also, I considered them to be my own special art school, where I could try out anything that came to mind. They were also a scientific experiment, in that the small broken shell was my constant, and the other factors were changed for each painting.

I heartily recommend that artists paint in a series. There’s no better way to learn your craft. But choose your series type and criteria carefully. You want to work fast.

Reason being, each separate entity will suggest to you another idea, and you will want to get to that one while you’re still fired up about it.

A useful metaphor for me is how an ocean wave contains an orb of energy. Eventually, this orb exhausts itself when it crashes into the shoreline. A creative wave is the same. Ride it soon, it won’t last forever.

Although I again failed to write the number of this member of the series on the back of the photo, I know I carefully positioned the light and my shell model so as to permit a small beam of light to pass through an aperture on the body of the shell.

I’m pleased by my rendition of the left hand side of the shell with the light passing through it. Considering how white the seashell looks when light hits it directly, I was always pleasantly surprised by the warm glow emitted when light passed through the “wing” as I call it, of the shell.

You may notice that in each of these studies, I have areas with cool and areas with warm tones. Even though my Shell Fragments were usually “high key” in that their values were all at the higher end of the value and tone scale, I always presented contrast with temperatures.

In case you don’t know, blues is considered cool and orange is considered warm.

Wherever you are, I hope the temperature suits you and that you always have a beam of pure white light to lead you onward!