Abstract Design IX

This abstract design is full of fun and life and asks … “what’s going to happen next?” I know I would love to get a present with this wrapping paper. (I would like to get a present anyway, but even more so with this paper.)

Abstract Design IX, Digital © Diane Clancy

I am still looking into licensing these designs for wrapping paper or fabric. If you would like to read more about this process for the abstract designs, please read the post Abstract Design XI in my other blog www.dianeclancy.com/blog.

I think the movement and energy of this digital painting is fun - the movement is horizontal, vertical and diagonal. The composition of a painting is important. One wants to keep the eye of the viewer in the image and to keep the person looking around at different parts of the picture. I think this works in this painting.

Does anyone know of ArtFlock, http://www.artflock.com ? I have heard of Etsy, http://www.etsy.com/, these last few weeks. I am glad to find other artists have been satisfied at Etsy. Does anyone know if ArtFlock treats their artists well also? Thank you for any help you can be!

~ Diane Clancy

Nature Reflections I

I’ve always enjoyed the colors blue and yellow together - ever since I was a child. There is some way my eye goes back and forth, back and forth between a bright blue and a bright yellow. Many people have been drawn to this particular digital painting - from my aunt who was over 90 to young children. The birds, representing nature, are part of what I think draws people into this picture. Also, this image is at the border between realism and abstraction - where I think much interesting transformation happens.

Nature Reflections I, Digital © Diane Clancy

I created this image using Studio Artist, a very unusual art program. I started with a beautiful photograph of several birds and then digitally transformed the picture. I think many people are drawn by the fact that they can see birds - but often they keep looking trying to understand what is going on.

As with much of my own creative process, I can never quite reproduce what happens by accident. I do much better when I am aligned with my muse and allow the flow to happen than when I try too hard to “make” things happen. Of course, technical skills are still crucial - but, for me, the greatest reward comes when I feel in the flow. I wish for us all to be able to live in that flow.

- Diane Clancy

Outer Flow XV

Several years ago I had my first exhibit that had room to hang about 40 pieces of my original artwork in a variety of traditional mediums. After hanging all this work, my artist friend said, “I didn’t think all your work would go together - but it does! Your work is all about color. I never realized that until I saw it all at once. I thought the differences in mediums would make it feel fragmented.”

Outer Flow XV, Digital © Diane Clancy

This experience helped me realize that the unifying theme of my artwork is color. I play with color in most of my work. I often create series with similar subject matter and different colors.

It is part of my method to explore variations in form and color - often subtle. This technique particularly interests me. The “Inner Flow” series explores small changes in form. Going from “Inner Flow” to “Outer Flow” delves into transformations of color.

About Outer Flow III, Sue O’Kieffe of Sacred Circles Mandalas said, “this image has a much more celestial feeling to it ” than the “Inner Flow” series. So, I think this name of “Outer Flow” is a winner.

~ Diane Clancy

Outer Flow III

Now this image makes my heart sing! I love the bright bursts of aqua floating through the painting and the purples in the background - or is it deep space? My soul is fed very deeply by this image.

Outer Flow III, Digital © Diane Clancy

A few days ago in the post Beginning Life III I said that I would play with the color in that image to make the colors more in harmony with my inner color sense. This is the result of that play. I feel so much more uplifted when I look at this digital painting. I like the other one, but I love this one!

I am open to another name than “Outer Flow.” In the post Inner Flow III, there is a related image. This morning when I was reaching for a name, I thought of the Inner Flow series. You can find many technical details about creating these paintings in that post.

The Beginning Life series feels like the inside of cells …. The Inner Flow series … I think of them as being inside and on the micro-level. So far, I think this Outer Flow series reminds me more of the universe flowing around - the planets and such - the macro-level.

You begin to see my process of naming my paintings. I plan to make videos in transforming the image from Beginning Life III to Outer Flow III. Perhaps it is interesting that all 3 images mentioned in this post are “III” - a mystical number.

~ Diane Clancy