Lisa Thornton Whittaker - Art By Lisa
Today’s featured artist is Lisa Thornton Whittaker. Lisa is a marvelous painter utilizing rich, deep colors to add excitement to every piece. Realistic or abstract, all of these are just lovely! Among my favorites are “Jack in the Pulpit”, “Untitled”, “Peanut Butter Jelly” and “Lilac”. -ArtSweet
Imagekind Gallery ArtByLisa
Copyright (C) 2008
Architectural, Botanical and Abstract Art by Lisa Thornton Whittaker.
Jack in the Pulpit
This was my reintroduction to painting after a long hiatus. The piece was inspired by a Jack in the Pulpit flower in my living room. The painting was intended to capture the movement of the flower, the thrust of the flower outward. Perhaps I tried to capture its growth. So far it is one of my favorites that I have done this year.
Bowls
I chose to paint this pottery because I find it challenging on a different level than flowers. Flowers lend themselves a forgiving form to the task of setting up a painting. Pottery, however, is something that is used so often that its forms are fixed within our minds, so that much of the time spent executing a painting is in the set up of the composition. I tried to exploit the simple elegance of the composition of forms while giving it the look of an ethereal glow. I love black backgrounds; I feel it draws more focus onto the object itself.
Lily No. 2
Lily
Peony
Untitled
Pisces
"Imaginative and sensitive, Compassionate and kind, Selfless and unworldly, Intuitive and sympathetic. On the dark side.... Escapist and idealistic, Secretive and vague, Weak-willed and easily led." A
Spanish Steps
Cup in a Bowl in a Bowl in a Bowl . . .
Apartment Cats
Peanut Butter Jelly
My daughter named it.
Spike
Big Red
This large acrylic painting is a study of space, movement and geometry. With the piece I hoped to achieve the feeling that the space within the painting is collapsing within itself. I have always been a fan of the Russian Constructivist painter Liubov (Lyubov) Popova and the obvious motion that she shows within her paintings. While in architecture school I studied her work and painted this piece not long after. While many who have seen this piece have questioned whether or not I consider it to be ?cubist,? I believe the similarities lean towards the ideas of Analytical Cubism. However, the painting is more closely associated with the Deconstructivist Movement in architecture. The painting is an abstract assemblage of geometric forms positioned and colored in such a way as to suggest kinetic energy. The painting itself is large and is supposed to make you feel within yourself a little of the energy and that exists in the tension of the fragments.
As with most of my painting, I start out with a rough sketch on the canvas. From there I let the painting and my hands - or in other words, the organic and living ACT of painting ? dictate the final outcome. In an age where so much can be generated on the computer and so much of what it generated is sterile or trite, I believe that the actual act of using your hands to create is very important. There is a quality and energy that can only be delivered by objects created by hand and by inspiration, which is why the sketch is only a method to map out the canvas than the dictator of the final product.
Thanks for checking out my portfolio and please email me if you have any questions about this piece. Support Art!!!!
Chrysanthemum
Venice
love Italy! It has to be my favorite place to visit. I also love architecture. I am fascinated with the way layers of a city combine to form complex fabrics of life. Stacks of hotel windows over the
Wisteria
An intense, up-close look at the flower. More an expression of the essence of Wisteria than an acrylic "photograph." I had a great time painting this one, and developed a new appreciation for a flower that I was previously not as familiar with.
Bug
I couldn't have done this if the bug wasn't pretty in its own right. . . When I decided to enter the insect show, I first went through and looked at photos of insects to find one that the site of whic
Waterlilies
Fish Town
My husband is from the Lealanau area. If you can look past some of the silly little shops in this area, it's really sort of neat. Lake Michigan would be towards my back in this picture. The fish store is on my left.
lilac
I like to paint flowers very close up so that they fill the entire canvas. I like to focus on the power of the single elements that make up the entire picture our mind typically generates when we think ?shrub? or ?lilac.? For me this vantage point exploits the energy of the flower, as though one could dive into this burst of purple. This flower was a challenge because the close vantage required particular care in setting up the composition.
maggy
The Dogwood Painting
Some of the most striking art can be found already created in nature.
I love flowers, I love tending flowers, and I love painting flowers. I wanted to give these dogwood flowers an energetic look, as though they might be moving slightly in a breeze. Although this is a realistic piece, I wanted to subtly exaggerate the qualities that make this flower beautiful. I pushed the saturation of the colors to the point that it looks nearly wild, but not completely so. I tried to retain the delicate nature of the flower by maintaining a calm backdrop and floral details. I love black backdrops to showcase the form and movement of the flowers. I wanted to develop the simple elegance of the symphony of forms while giving it the appearance of a delicate glow.
I began creating realistic paintings at the urging of my family and friends. I am not sure if they wanted to see something that they could relate to in a literal way or just wanted to see if I could actually do something realistic, but I accepted the challenge nevertheless. I actually believe that these realistic paintings have helped to enhance my abstract paintings further. The colors and saturation of color is similar to my abstract painting, but what I found interesting was the challenge this flower presented to my eyes and mind. The flower is not simply PINK. This pink flower has dozens of colors ? green shadows, blue undertone, red highlights ? probably even some colors I missed!! Painting this flower was like having to see, or re-see, the flower for the very first time.
secret meeting
snapdragon
This is a close up view of the beautiful and vibrant snapdragon flower. This is an abstract view of the flower, capturing the essence of its elegant form. I love to use the striking forms found in nature ? the sensual undulations of a flower petal, for example ? as a jumping off point to create works that exude movement and liveliness. This is actually one of the great rewards of painting nature, that I am afforded the opportunity to study in great detail the loveliness of our ordinary world. A viewer may see a flower, or an eruption, or a lava lamp. To be honest, I don?t care, as long as the energy I intended for the painting to capture is felt.
I intended for this painting to pulsate with light and color, the forms pouring over each other with the contours appearing as though they will plop and ooze over the edge of the canvas. The colors are inspired from the actual colors of the snapdragon flower, but are super saturated and exaggerated to accentuate the vigor of the image.
I am pleased with how the colors seem illuminated from within the painting and was surprised with how well they turned out. This is one on my favorite paintings that I have completed and remains in my personal collection.
This painting was created for the EBSQ Flower of the Month: Snapdragon Show. The flower of the Month Show is by far my favorite show series on EBSQ. Support Art!!
Chrysanthemum
The amount of pink paint as well as the variety of pink paint I had to mix for this painting was incredible! The eye and mind see this flower and simply think ?PINK!? However, there is so much more to the color of this flower. This pink flower has dozens of colors ? green shadows, blue undertone, yellow highlights, etc. I loved this mum because it was a usual spring-like shade of pink rather than the more common muted fall colors.
Like most of my stills, I chose a black background, but opted to fill the canvas with petals to really showcase the pretty flower and the elegance of its elements. This flower was a challenge because the close vantage required special care in setting up the composition. Unlike most of my work, I endeavored to portray a very calm scene rather than one with energy rushing off the canvas. Nevertheless, because of my affinity for rich saturated colors I believe the best I achieved was reserved enthusiasm, lol!
With this painting I started with a rather detailed drawing, giving contour lines to even the smallest gradations in colors. It was important to me to retain the reality of the form and color but finely introduce the sensation of calmness through the quality of line and composition.
Support Art!!!!
Hibiscus
Potted
This abstract painting was created for Heather Sims, a fellow artist, and inspired by her work entitled, "Ode to Polish Pottery VII." Heather, who lives in Germany, has a passion -- or maybe obsession :-) -- for Polish Pottery. Since I have known her she has provided me with a Polish Pottery education and even a little pitcher of my own. I knew when I signed up to do the EBSQ ?Ripped Off? show with her that I had to do a ?rip? of one of her trademark pottery paintings. I chose Ode VII because I really liked the colors and composition of her painting.
I chose to do an abstract because Heather has expressed interest in my abstracts before. As with many of my paintings, I first began with a sketch of the painting. I love artwork that shows movement and vibrancy so I created a repeating pattern that vaguely resembled the plate in Heather?s work to express a progression of form across the canvas. I wanted her to be able to recognize pieces of her own work in mine ? the plate, the plants, and the creamer ? with out resorting to a literal translation. In other words, the forms of her painting take on an entirely different meaning and composition in my painting. I returned to my familiar palette of saturated and highly contrasted colors to express energy and near reverberation in the image. I like paintings that scream.
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT HEATHER SIMS' IMAGEKIND PAGE!!
Ship Shimmer
I was born and raised in Kentucky. Everywhere there are horses, horse farms, horse fences, streets named after horses, neighborhoods named after horses, buildings named after horses, horses named after other horses. I somehow have never been on a horse, just pet their noses at Keeneland or Churchill Downs. Nevertheless, I felt I needed to enter the EBSQ Equestrian Show, particularly since I just left my home state of Kentucky to live in Ohio. I wanted to get a closer view of the jockey and horse and show the intensity of the race. I've used oil paints on a pre-stretched canvas and have given this horse the name Ship Shimmer. Go Ship Shimmer, go!
