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Deborah J. Brasket

~ Living on the Edge of the Wild

Deborah J. Brasket

Tag Archives: Pinterest

A Symphony in Blue and Gold

17 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

art, blue and gold, color., inspiration, Paintings, personal, Pinterest

Vincent Van Gogh 'Starry Night over the Rhone' detail center

Vincent Van Gogh

I know I’ve written about this before, my love affair with the colors blue and gold, how they play so poignantly against each other. I was reminded of this by a quote found on one of my favorite abstract artist’s website, MyMonkey Mind

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

Vincent Van Gogh

I’m not sure what Van Gogh meant by this, but it struck a chord with me, and I wonder if that is why I love these two colors in combination so much, opposites that cannot be parted, that sing to each other, that create a deep and wide, high and low, dazzling and dark space that fills every corner of my mind.

Blue and Gold was one of the first Pinterest pages I created, just so I could go there and get my fill of that rapture.

Here are a few of my favorites. Tell me, how do they make you feel?

Willem de Kooning.

Willem de Kooning

“My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”  Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt

Window at Tanger, 1912 Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

The Sea at Dusk, watercolor by Emile Nolde http://paintwatercolorcreate.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-vibrant-watercolors-of-emil-nolde.html

Emil Nolde

Andre Derain

Andre Derrain

Les Peupliers, Automne ~Claude Monet

Claude Monet

Fairy Tales by Paul Klee                                                                                                                                                                                 Mehr

Paul Klee

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In the Mood for Love, in Music and Art

15 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art, Love, music

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

art, Love, Lovers, music, Pinterest, Romance, Visual Arts

Emil Nolde - Reddish-brown Couple (Embracing)

Emil Nolde – Lover’s Embracing

Some favorite pairings in music and art to start your weekend off. I fell in love with this hauntingly sad-sweet piece by Shigeru Umebayashi and paired it with some of my favorite romantic images on my “Mothers and Other Lovers” Pinterest page. Enjoy.

 

Antonio Canova - Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, 1793

Antonio Canova – Psyche Revived by Cupid’s kiss

 

Edvard Munch, Kiss by the Window, 1892, Oil on canvas    73 x 92 cm   See the best #Art installations in New York at www.artexperience...

Edvard Munch “Kiss by the Window”

 

Guinivere, Emma Florence Harrison.

A Knight’s Kiss b Anne Anderson

Autor:Rodin Obra: El beso Obra hiperrealista realizada en mármol. Tiene una textura la cual interpreta el artista sobre la obra totalmente de acuerdo con las características de un ser humano. La obra se encuentra en Paris

Auguste Rodin

Tristan and Isolde by Mac.Fisman

Tristan and Isolde by Mac Fisman

Lovers William_Powell_Frith_The_lovers

Lovers by William Powell Firth

 

 

Very classic Picasso style - love these!

By Erhard Loblein

 

One of Ireland's favourite paintings and also recently voted as the nations favourite as well -Frederic William Burton's 'The Meeting on the Turret Stairs'.

Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Frederick Burton

 

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt

 

The Fisherman and the Siren - Frederic Leighton - WikiArt.org

The Fisherman and the Siren by Frederic Leighton

 

Paradise_Lost_16

Adam and Eve from Milton’s Paradise Lost

 

Extremely rare 1923 edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren...

Gustaf Tenggren illustration for Grimm’s Fairy Tale

 

 

by Emil Nolde 1867 - 1956.

By Emil Nolde

 

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Dreaming in Blue and Gold

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

art, blue and gold, color psychology, creativity, Odilon Redon, painting, Paintings, Pinterest, watercolor

DSCN2766

I’ve long had a thing about the colors blue and gold, especially in combination. Something about them soothes and excites me. I created a Pinterest page of nothing but images of blue and gold. I go there to feel enriched, refreshed. To simply bask in the feelings these colors evoke. Depth and richness, serenity and empowerment.

Blue is the color of the sea and the sky, or sleep and twilight. In color psychology it represents mystery, depth, intuition. It also symbolizes intelligence, inspiration, wisdom and spirituality, even the Virgin Mary. One source considers blue as “beneficial to the mind and body.” It is associated with peace and tranquility.

The color gold is associated with “illumination, love, compassion, courage, passion, magic, and wisdom.” It symbolizes self-purification, humankind’s quest  to perfect, illuminate and refine ourselves. In Christian art it is often used to convey divine love.

Together, I think they symbolize the creative spirit, with all the mystery and intuition, passion and empowerment that implies.

Sometimes I find myself dreaming of images in blue and gold, and that’s where these last two paintings come from. Both were inspired in part by paintings of Odilon Redon, his blue poppies, his lady in blue, as shown above.

But in my dream, the poppies were dancing, lighter than air, in a deep blue bowl, partial and incomplete. As if blown away by, or evaporating into, the light.

My blue lady, deep in meditation, became sphinx-like, swathed in swirling spirals of blue and gold.

The blue I used is my favorite, Daniel Smith’s French Aquamarine, which I used straight from the tube with only enough water to allow it to flow. Applied that way it has such a velvety texture it makes you want to touch it.

The gold is Smith’s Quinacridone Deep Gold, another favorite, which I mellowed with Cadmium Yellow Light.

The poppies are framed now at the end of my hallway. I named it, appropriately enough, “Dancing Poppies in a Blue Bowl.”  Although sometimes I just think of it as “blown away.” I like the lightness of the poppies, the weight of the bowl, the way the whole piece is in motion.

 

DSCN2932

The other, “Meditation in Blue and Gold,” is leaning on a bookshelf in my study. When I glance at her she instills in me that sense of peace and inspiration and love essential to any creative task.

DSCN2940

 

 

 

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Soul-Searching in a Sea of Images

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art, Culture, Life At Sea, Spirituality, Swimming

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

art, colleciting, creativity, foraging, inspiration, personal, Pinterest, searching, Soul Searching

saved-from-pinterest-by-erin-gregory

Painting by Erin Gregory

I stayed up late last night, way past my bed time, searching Pinterest for images to save to my boards.It was a quiet and soothing experience, punctuated by intense pleasure when I came across something that spoke to me, made my heart sing, or feel a deep, abiding resonance.

It reminded me of the pure pleasure and satisfaction I felt when I was living aboard La Gitana, foraging beneath the sea for food–pin scallops, lion paws, conch. There’s a certain mind-set you acquire when searching for something that lies half-hidden among all the other equally beautiful and arresting shapes of sea life. While swimming along the surface of things, your mind is keenly tuned toward just that precise shape and color that you know will yield what you are looking for. And when you see it, you dive down deep with knife and net in hand to retrieve it, before resurfacing to continue the hunt.

In the case of image collecting, the “food” I seek is for the mind and soul, something that touches me in such a way I feel blessed for having found it, for allowing my eyes to feast upon it, for letting what it was the artist sought to articulate speak to me.

In addition to that deep-souled searching is a more practical pursuit as I learn to paint with watercolor and pastel–a need to understand why certain images affect me in certain ways, and how the artist induces those felt-responses. How do colors and shapes and textures, certain strokes and effects, delight and move me the way they do? What makes the images arresting? What makes my eye linger here and not there? To feel such a connection that I want to “save” it, so I can return again and again to bask and meditate?

What creates this resonance, and what does it say about me, and about the artist?

I want to learn to apply paint to paper in a way that expresses my own delight in things that will move others as well. How do we share what’s deep and meaningful and enriching  to us with others? Especially when what we find so striking or moving lies half-hidden within, not something we can clearly put our finger on–only feel.

So much to muse upon.

Here are a few of the paintings that moved and delighted me last night as I swam and dove among a sea of images on Pinterest.

saved-from-pinterest-the-artistsroad-net

Ocean Light II by John Hulsey

saved-from-pinterest-la-barque-by-odin

La Barque by Odilon Redon

saved-from-pinterest-a-wedding-in-december-by-bill-gingles

A Wedding in December by Bill Gingles

saved-from-pinterest-the-parkway-by-henri-manguin

The Parkway by Henri Manguin

saved-from-pinterest-liminal-moment-by-bobbette-rose

Liminal Moment by Bobbette Rose

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Mothers & Other Lovers, Compelling Art

14 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art, Family, Love

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Analysis, art, children, Mothers, One-in-Two, Oneness, Pinterest, Primal, Two-in-One, Twoness, Unity, Universal, Wholeness

Margarita Sikorskaia 1968 | St. Petersburg, Russia | TuttArt@ | Pittura * Scultura * Poesia * Musica |

Margarita Sikorskaia 1968, St. Petersburg, Russia

What makes compelling art? Why do I find this image of mother and child, and the ones below, so powerful and profound?

I’ve asked these questions since creating a new Pinterest page titled “Mother & Other Lovers.” Somehow I felt compelled to collect and preserve these images for my viewing pleasure.

I could probably write a post for each artwork in the collection, exploring the rich associations and symbolism, both personal and primal, as well as the emotional, philosophical, and spiritual subtexts and connotations. But I’ll start with these four.

One element I’m drawn to is how the depiction of mother and child is a powerful symbol, not only of love, but of unity and wholeness. It depicts two in one, and one in two. Two overlapping and enveloping identities. “Not-two” is the way a Buddhist or Taoist might put it.

The painting by Sikorskaia at the top of the post shows this beautifully. The mother’s body wraps about her breast-feeding infant and fills the whole space with the solid, four-square wholeness of her presence. Her dark head is bent, attentive, surrounded by a halo of light-colored flesh. Her arms, open hand, and bend back form another circle, encircling the first. Her feet tenderly touch each other, and with the raised and lowered legs form a triangle of unity, the base upon which the mother sits.

The dominant colors of blue and gold complement each other. She is sitting on the earth with the mountains at her back. She is grounded and centered, while the child is loose in her arms, able to move and to feed freely, but blending with the mother’s flesh, showing how closely knit they are even while separate beings. The dominant lines creating this painting are round, curved, circling each other. Mother and child are one in body and being. Two in one. One in two.

The following image by Barnet is similar. Mother and child completely fill the space and overflow it. They are facing each other, mirror reflections of each other. She sees herself in her child, the child sees itself in the mother. Her hands are wrapped around the child, but open, as is the child’s hand, reaching up toward the mother, toward its other surrounding self.

The unity here is expressed in layers of gently curving horizontal lines, the gray space between the two indeterminate. The two-ness is more distinct than in the last image we looked at, but the oneness is also clearly seen. Soft shades of grey unite them. But that bit of red fuzz  on the child’s head, as well as the vertical slant of the child’s knee and arm, sets them apart. Their eventual separation into two-ness is gently hinted here, unlike the first.

Will Barnet, Mother and Child,1993-2006, Oil on canvas, 26 x 30 inches. Courtesy of Mr. & Mrs. J. William Meek III. ©2006 Will Barnet

Will Barnet, Mother and Child,1993-2006

The painting by Irwin that follows also creates the powerful feeling of oneness and unity, but without the round and horizontal lines of the first two. Here we see the indistinct features and form of mother and child surrounded by a shadowy, indistinct background. The vertical figure is centered and reaches top to bottom, nearly bisecting the page. Clearly it shows two in one, one in two. The soft, indistinct edges of the form feather into the background, soft and permeable. The Mother and Child are one with each other and one with the surrounding environment. The whole painting is a study of unity and wholeness.

Madonna & Child  by Holly Irwin

Madonna & Child by Holly Irwin

Two-ness is more evident in the next paintings.

In the first below by Harmon, mother and child again fill the space. Wholeness, oneness, is still the dominant theme. The mother’s face seems blissful, as if she is drinking up the scent of her, to savor her closeness. The sea surrounds them, symbolizing the womb, the place of birth, of oneness. But the child’s dangling legs, the soles of her feet, denote her readiness and ability to separate from her mother. The restless waves at their feet foreshadow the coming parting, when the mother puts down her child. We can imagine them walking hand-in-hand down the beach.

In The Ocean Air by Johanna Harmon

In The Ocean Air by Johanna Harmon

We see this close unity and foreshadowing of separation in the following image by Sorolla as well.

Here, the sea as backdrop both unites the figures of mother/child and introduces the element of separation in the layered waves and wayward boat. The deep shadows and strong light also denotes two-ness–the pairing of opposites. The towel flung over and around mother and child unite them, but all that takes place behind them foreshadows separation. It seems a beautiful, tender, but fleeting moment in time. Unlike the first three images which seem iconic, timeless and eternal.

Sorolla - Masterful colorist "Just Out of the Sea" 1915

Sorolla – Masterful colorist “Just Out of the Sea” 1915

This last painting by Larson is probably my favorite among these six–for so many reasons. But first and foremost because it captures that golden glow of late afternoon on the beach, when the strong light casts shadows so deep and dark. The light shimmers around them and through them, uniting them, and revealing a transparency that we see in the figure’s back-lit clothing.

Mother and child are clearly two distinct individuals now. Still, the touching heads and hands form a circle of unity and closeness. Even the shadows at their feet flowing upward through the two figures form a second circle of unity. We still have two-in-one and one-in-two, even while the separate individuals are clearly defined.

There is something nostalgic about this painting. A tender sweetness underscored by the foreshadowing of separation as the two move apart from each other and this singular moment is lost in passing time. We cannot stop passing time, but we can capture it in these sweet moments, and preserve it in our art and our memories.

"Beach Treasures" by Jeffrey T. Larson (1999)

“Beach Treasures” by Jeffrey T. Larson (1999)

And I suppose that’s why I find all these paintings so powerful and profound. They capture universal and primal experiences we all have shared at one time or another in our journey from one to two and back again.

Do these images speak to you? Which do you favor and why? Visit my Pinterest page to see more.

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Pinterest, My New Guilty Pleasure

08 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art, Culture

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

art, blue and gold, Boats at sea, collecting, illustrations of fairy tales, images, Pinterest, Zen

Yuko Hosaka

By Yuko Hosaka, a Japanese illustrator and printmaker

I’ve been on a Pinterest kick lately that’s taken me into the wee hours of the morning, searching for images to pin to my boards. I don’t know how to describe the pleasure it brings, searching through pages and pages of artwork and photographs to chance upon the perfect one that lights up my mind and makes me purr with delight.

Capturing these images to visit again and again on my boards feels like a real achievement. Like I’ve created these personal cupboards filled with rare scents I can sniff and swoon over to my heart’s delight.

I have 7 boards now. My first was Illustrations of Nursery Rhymes & Fairy Tales. I began collecting these when I was working on a blog post about childhood influences in literature and art.

mudwerks:    (via Golden Age Comic Book Stories)    Jessie Wilcox Smith - water-babies

Jessie Wilcox Smith – Water-Babies

✯ The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang :: Illustrations by H. J. Ford✯

✯ The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang :: Illustrations by H. J. Ford✯

from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Marija Jevtic - http://www.behance.net/gallery/Grimms-Fairy-Tales/5411205

Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Marija Jevtic – http://www.behance.net/gallery/Grimms-Fairy-Tales/5411205

Story Book Sundays - The Wind - Illustrated by Ruth Hallock

Story Book Sundays – The Wind – Illustrated by Ruth Hallock

More recently I started one called Blue & Gold because these are my favorite colors, and the two together does something to me that I cannot describe.

Maurice sapiro The Six Foot Sunset   48"x72"

Maurice Sapiro, The Six Foot Sunset 48″x72″

Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World

The Sea at Dusk, watercolor by Emile Nolde http://paintwatercolorcreate.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-vibrant-watercolors-of-emil-nolde.html

The Sea at Dusk, watercolor by Emile Nolde

Galle, Sri Lanka

Galle, Sri Lanka

That one led me to create a board dedicated to images of the Sea & Boats. Blues and golds are featured here as well, and my life-long love of the ocean and sailing. There’s something that strike me as deeply feminine and mystical about the sea and the boats that sail there.

"Alomg the Nile" - by Sergej Ovcharuk ~ Oil

“Along the Nile” – by Sergej Ovcharuk ~ Oil

Arte!: Konstantin Korovin, a Russian Impressionist Constantin Alexeevich Korovin - White Night in Nothern Norway - circa 1895

Konstantin Korovin, a Russian Impressionist Constantin Alexeevich Korovin – White Night in Nothern Norway – circa 1895

 

Howard Pyle: Attack on a Galleon, 1905 - oil on canvas (Delaware Art Museum)

Howard Pyle: Attack on a Galleon, 1905 – oil on canvas (Delaware Art Museum)

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh

A newer board is The Art of Zen. Here is where I collect images that speak to the spare and subtle “imperfect” perfection that lies at the heart of things.

Six Persimmons

Six Persimmons, Mu’ Chi, 13th century Zen monk

Jacques Henri Lartigue

Jacques Henri Lartigue

Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887-1986) - "Blue-03", 1916

Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887-1986) – “Blue-03”, 1916

吴冠中江南水乡绘画艺术桌面壁纸

吴冠中江南水乡绘画艺术桌面壁纸

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my cupboards of delight. You can see more here.

Do you collect things on Pinterest? What and why? I’d love to see them.

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This blog explores what it means to be living on the edge of the wild as a writer and an artist.

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After sailing around the world in a small boat for six years, I came to appreciate how tiny and insignificant we humans appear in our natural and untamed surroundings, living always on the edge of the wild, into which we are embedded even while being that thing which sets us apart. Now living again on the edge of the wild in a home that borders a nature preserve, I am re-exploring what it means to be human in a more than human world.

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