Highlights from Baren Forum Exchange #75 2/2

Part 2 after yesterday's part 1. For my second post highlighting some of my favorite prints from Baren Forum Exchange #75 I've decided to feature two landscape: Sauvie's Island by Barbara Mason and Saou by Abel Dewitz 

We've been here many times before. It's so familiar, we keep designating it as a place to meet up. It only exists in our mind's eye, a memory of a few shapes and colors. The details aren't important for our purposes. It is a sudden grasp, a deep inhale, a purposeful opening of our eyes after a period of dark retreat inward. The world is still out there. In there. Over, out, and above.

This will all fall away. Break up, drift apart, and disappear.

[Baren] Exchange #63: Two Flower Prints

This is a part 2 of 2, highlighting a few of my favorite prints from [Baren] Exchange #63. I wrote about my print for this exchange - In the Tent With Bunny - last month. The technique for this exchange was "Moku-hanga in the tradition of Japanese printmaking". The theme was open. The paper size was 7.5" x 10".

Today I feature two prints of flowers, which I thought offered a particularly striking contrast with each other. The first is Narcissus by Andrew Stone. (He wrote about this print on his own art blog, which can be found here.) The second Rudbeckia by Abel Dewitz (whose website can be found here.) 

Stone's image is so bold with its arresting yellow background. The black outlines are broad yet articulate.  The flower's stem soars up assertively. New buds bide their time at the pinnacle beyond the frame, while the mature blossoms survey all that is below them, wide-eyed and fearless. 

Dewitz's flowers are completely different. They have no outlines, only shadows. They breezily sway over a misty horizon. They are past their prime with regards to blooming; the pedals that remain are brown and hang low. And yet, they are no less beautiful for their advanced age because with their withered pedals they have learned new and graceful poses for the artist to study. While Stone's flower effortlessly crosses the border of the picture-plane, Dewitz's have no border to cross. They dance in a scene that is quiet and mysterious in its hazy vastness.