"Aglow" 14" X 10" fluid acrylic and watercolor

Aglow by April M. Rimpo

Aglow

fluid acrylic and watercolor

14" X 10" varnished and framed

$375 within the United States*

Available through Xanadu Gallery's Online Artist Studio Store

* Contact April regarding purchase outside USA or if interested in the painting without the frame

When sitting in a park (Madison Square Park in NYC) a woman appeared in the distance carrying a parasol to block the bright sun.  As she passed in and out of shaded spots the umbrella would light up like a spotlight.  She was wearing light colors and her hair was blond so she appeared to almost glow against the backdrop of the park. With my camera at the ready I started taking photographs as she walked in hopes of catching a moment when she was lit up by the sun.  I wanted to feature the stark contrast between the glowing woman and the dark textured foliage and fence rails that she passed.   My painting, Aglow, was the result.  

I decided I wanted to make the background very colorful to add a lot of interest since I planned to make the colors of the woman very light and simple. The contrast of light against dark augmented with simple versus complex color blends felt right. 

I chose to use fluid acrylics for the background which I first applied in a few areas and let partially dry before washing off most of the color. This approach leaves a ragged edge "batik-like" appearance that added texture to the background. While the background was very wet, I flowed in a wide variety of colors: blues to make the orange parasol pop, reds, greens, golden, and purple hues that blended and swirled to make wonderful variety in the dark background. The balance of the painting was done with watercolor. I saved some spots of white which I later tinted with pale colors to add a bit of sparkle throughout the painting. 

Follow this link to see other paintings where I combine fluid acrylic and watercolor


Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

Des Colores: Movement III 18" X 24" Fluid Acrylic

Movement III by April M Rimpo

Movement III

Acrylic

18" X 24" image

I love color.  I still think the lights and darks (value range) of a painting are the most important design element to make a painting work, but the colors can really make a painting sing.

Last year I experimented with a number of color combinations described in a book by Stephen Quiller, Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out Of Color Theory. This painting shows one combination that really appealed to me and I have now used several times: Lime Green, Orange, and Purple. Yes, there are touches of Pthalo blue as well, but it was used to create the Lime Green, so leaving a little of it felt right in this painting. There is not enough to alter the primary color combination I chose to use. 

This painting was about the energy and speed of the cyclists who were competing in a triathlon. The abstracted background added not just a fascinating backdrop to the cyclists but helped communicate their speed since it would out of focus and really a blur of color as they moved through the world. I admire cyclists and love to share their energy with others as part of telling their story. 

This painting has exhibited in the following exhibitions:

• 26th Annual International Society of Experimental Artists (2017) Sanibel Island, Florida

• 2^nd Annual Online All-Member Juried Exhibition of the International Society of Acrylic Painters (2017)

Here are a couple other paintings where I used the same Lime Green, Orange, and Purple combination.

Cycling
Floral Wonderland
Sunset
Dancers
Shadows on the Path
Country II
Chicadee

Other paintings of cyclists
Movement Series
Cycling and Race

Click here to Contact April

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

"Rhythm" - An Abstract with a theme

Rhythm, 24" X 45" gallery wrapped watercolor

I recently had the challenge of creating a painting for a very dark space in a home with brown carpeting, dark brown stained barn board walls, and no windows.  If you didn’t turn the lights on you couldn’t see well enough to walk across the room.  I felt the painting needed to have a lot of white and bright colors to helps brighten the room.

This room is adjacent to an entertainment room with a bar and is decorated in a musical theme.  Although it's an abstract painting, I wanted there to be some connection to music in the design.  The shapes used in the abstract harken back to musical instruments and notes and sheet music was incorporated as collage elements.

Design and Value Pattern

I started by developing the design on tracing paper, adding white “charcoal” where I wanted to retain the white of the paper and gray shading where I wanted dark black.  This was my value pattern for the abstract.  Since this home is in a wooded area I felt using the colors of Fall would be appropriate to transition between the dark and white areas while provided the color needed to brighten the room.   In other paintings I used a complementary triad of orange, green and purple, so a few spots of purple were scattered about the painting to increase vibrancy.

Here you can see the painting in its new home

If you compare the value pattern shown above with the finished painting, you can see that pattern was a guide that I modified as I developed the painting.  I divided the transition areas between the white and black areas to allow more color variations.  Some white areas were reduced in size and shifted in position to create a more interesting flow and rhythm to the painting.  Lastly, some calligraphic touches of musical notes and symbols were added.

"Fire Escape", 26.5" X 20" watercolor

Fire Escape by April M. Rimpo

As is true for many of my city-scapes, Fire Escape is primarily about interesting patterns.  Fire Escapes provide a natural repetition of pattern.  The windows adjacent to the fire escape provided additional repetition.  Fire Escape was also a play with negative shapes.  

Fire Escape

watercolor

26.5” X 20” image

34" X 28" brushed silver frame

$1195

Donated to the 2015 Collector's Choice  Art Auction held by the Maryland Federation of Art to help fun this non-profit organization

Many watercolorists seem to be drawn to fire escapes as a subject for their painting.  I had some photographs I had taken over the years, but every time I looked at them I struggled with how to do something different.  I had cropped them into what I thought were interesting design patterns, but that was not enough.  Finally I thought about inverting the values so the darks and shadows became the lights and the light colors became the darks.  Once I started to play with that idea then I could focus on a color scheme for the darks without being caught up in realistic colors.  It no longer mattered whether the building color was believable, since nothing was “normal”.  At that point my color inspiration had been freed from the mundane. 

When I think of the city I think of pale blues and grays, but now I felt free to explore richer blues and purple tones.  I wanted a restricted color palette so I stayed with an Analogous palette.   Cerulean was only used in a few of the lighter passages and in the floor of the landings.  I did branch out slightly from this palette in some of the lighter gray and beige passages.

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo 2015 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.