Thank you for asking. It's not a very appealing starting point -- a half-erased blackboard.

I was interested in seeing how much color I could get out of a blackboard using Lightroom.

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1. What do you make of this painting? What do you think of the color palette? The composition? The impact? Would you want it on your wall? Why or why not?

I most certainly would consider putting it on my wall. Things on my wall must bear considerable and continued attention. They are not there for decorative purposes, they are there to allow me to stand (or usually sit) in front of them and stare at them. With Rothko, the longer I look at his work, the more it reveals. What at first looked like 2 or 3 blocks of color slowly display nuances not at first apparent, like texture and, for lack of a better word, glow. The colors start to inform the other colors: yellow bands above orange, for example, seem to introduce blues into the orange. Many pictures, including photos, often disclose most, if not all, of what they depict within a split-second. Not so with Rothko, and others, at least for me.

2. Rothko himself, as well as many art critics who have written about his work, referenced the feeling that such paintings may evoke? Does this painting express a mood or message for you? If so, please tell us about it. Do you agree with Rothko that the primary purpose of art is to express human emotion? Explain.

Emotion in art is very hard to describe verbally. It would probably take a poet to accomplish it, and, of course, a poem is itself a work of art. In looking at a Rothko, or really any other work, I try to extend the maximum amount of sympathy I'm capable of. After all, the artist spent a lot of time and effort achieving this very specific image and it's only fair that I should give a little back, even though I'll likely never invest as much as she or he did. It's also likely that the emotion will not be a simple one, easily labeled something like "fear" or "joy" or "serenity". It'll be more nuanced, perhaps compounded of several. The degree to which that emotion mirrors that of the artist will be impossible to determine, most of the time, although something like Picasso's Guernica may come close. Certainly, the emotion evoked by a Rothko will take time to emerge, just as the colors take time to reveal themselves.

3. I’m willing to bet that many of you have taken at least a photo or two that is almost as spare in subject matter as Rothko’s Color Field paintings, and that rely primarily on large areas of color to define them. If you have, please share one, and tell us about it, including whether you personally like your own photo or not and why.


On and off, I spend a fair amount of time experimenting with abstract images, although I can't really find any that illustrate color field painting as well as the ones that you and rg have posted. But, here's one that I'd like to share, although if I had to pick a painter that I was channelling it would more like be Helen Frankenthaler.

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#11

A very wise person made this decision. Bottom line -- popsicle sticks can kill. Oro-pharyngeal injuries (as is the medical term for an injury to the soft palate or the back of the throat) are fairly common with kids and are associated with reckless use of popsicle sticks. There have been reports in the US of injury to the carotid artery resulting in stroke in children (and adults) following injuries to the side of the palate and back of the throat.

What's more, there's a condition called xylophobia which describes people who are terrified and repulsed at the idea of touching, licking, or running their teeth along wooden objects — such as Popsicle sticks.

On the other hand, nobody I've ever heard of has become ill, let alone died, from the use of a Canon lens.

Very nice scene to work with -- thanks.

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#7

Very nice scene. Thanks for letting us work on it.

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#11

I would like to add this entire thread to my compilation in progress "The Very Best of Ugly Hedge Hog, vol. 1". If anyone objects, please let me know.

Very nice scene. Thanks for offering it to us.

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Thank you for offering us this most interesting topic to ponder. I've taken the time to check out carefully the first link, which includes a video critique of the competition's entries and also a flipbook of the 101 winners (out of over 3,000 submissions). The flipbook is really well done. I need to try to figure out how to do something like that myself.

But -- to be honest, I was shocked. Well, maybe shocked isn't the right word, but I'm not quite sure what is the right word. Let me say that I'm not personally much of a landscape photographer, but classic landscape photographs were among those that got me interested in practicing photography and collecting photographs. Think Carleton Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan, William Henry Jackson. As such, I was struck by how few, how very few, of the 101 winners were anything close to nature landscape photography, let alone representational landscape photography. Also, how very few monochrome photographs made the top 101; and even those that did border on duotones. The vast majority are impressionistic landscape photographs that are hypersaturated and heavily post-processed. I've no problem with post-processing, but, for a competition of this sort, I'd expect more than images appearing to have been run through Topaz's menu of recipes, with saturation turned up to 11 on a 10 point scale. Although Mr. Luen's award winner is not the most extreme example, it is characteristic of much of the rest, in that it aspires to a painterly like image (think Frank Frazzetta). For so many of these photos, including Mr. Luen's, the goal is to create a feeling of other-worldliness, walking the line between fantasy and reality, so that viewers are presented with a surreal impression rather than a realistic presentation of a landscape.

I don't want to sound like an old fuddy-duddy (although that's really what I am), and I can appreciate a good impressionistic or abstract image as well as anybody, I'm just thunderstruck that the current state of landscape photography seems to have rejected any other kind.

#11

Nice scene. Thanks for letting us have at it. I was impressed by the social distancing on display.

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#14

Very nice scene. Thanks for letting us work on it.

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