No Illusions, Pulse of the Motherboard, In the Balance and Rising Green: New Digital Abstracts

I don't have much time to post this week, so I thought I would at least put up a few new digital works.  I love working with design and spatial relationships.  I think you could probably guess which title applies to which image, even if I didn't have them in consecutive order in the title of this post!
Is there one among the four that resonates with you more than the others?  If so, what do you think its appeal is for you?
Hope everyone is happy and healthy and taking some time for your favorite creative activity!

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary site at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/gallery if you would like to see my acrylic paintings and more of my photography and digital art. I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog!

Firestorm: New Abstract Expressionist Painting to Benefit Japan

Firestorm - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

I painted this piece last week, and I think it expresses my emotional response to recent events in Japan. In view of the ongoing devastation, grief and loss of the Japanese people, who have lost their homes, their towns and infrastructure and their loved ones, and who are facing the dire consequences of nuclear contamination, I will donate all profits from this painting to the American Red Cross Japan Fund. By that I mean all proceeds minus the fee (if any) due to whichever artist's site I may sell it on. Shipping is always the customer's responsibility. 

"Firestorm" is 22 x 28 inches, painted in acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas. It can be framed or hung without a frame. 

My price is $900.00.  By donating the proceeds of this painting to the people of Japan, I can afford to give a more sizable donation than I would otherwise make.  Maybe it will buy some clothing, food or drinking water for a family who has lost everything.

Let's pray for their comfort and healing, and for the nuclear nightmare they're faced with, to be adequately dealt with and over. As for the rest of humanity, I hope we'll learn to make better choices in our energy policy, and become more aware of the consequences of letting corporate interests and lobbyists push dangerous technologies. 

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary site at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/gallery if you would like to see my acrylic paintings and more of my photography and digital art. I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog!

Ponderosity: From My New Series of Small Abstract Expressionist Paintings

Ponderosity - Lynda Lehmann c 2011

An artist friend recently told me that she likes my black and white paintings and I had to ponder on the appeal of black and white.  

I've always loved design and I think painting in black and white gives a very graphic allure and perhaps a stronger design/compositional sense than using color.  Using color most often makes the color the "truth" of the painting, at least for those of us whose wild color-love becomes unleashed when we dip our brushes (or other tools) into lush pigments.
This small painting on gallery-wrapped canvas measures 11 by 14 inches, and except for a few linear brush strokes applied at the end, was done with a palette knife. 
According to Dictionary.com "ponderosity" is a related form of "ponderous," an adjective which means:

1.

of great weight; heavy; massive.

2.

awkward or unwieldy: He carried a ponderous burden on hisback.

3.

dull and labored: a ponderous dissertation.

Here's wishing you an artful day.  May nothing too ponderous come your way!
Note:  I'm aware that I have a code glitch or two on my page, and I'll eventually figure out how to fix it!
All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary site at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/gallery if you would like to see my acrylic paintings and more of my photography and digital art. I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog!

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Circus Balls, Dream of Red, and Other Digital Paintings

Intrusion of Linear Elements

Dream of Red

Circus Balls

It's good to be back. My husband and I are always so busy with projects, being the do-it-yourself types. Doing construction and home renovation with your own hands, brings the freedom to pursue new options, but not without a cost. The cost is that the agenda is always intimidating, if not overwhelming. So be it...

I haven't been able to paint in months. My most recent art project was to size, print, mat, and bag about 200 prints for a local coffee shop.

I've finally had time to sit down at the computer. Smitten with the painting bug late in the evening, my only recourse was to turn to digital art instead of breaking out all the smelly, messy acrylics.

The nice thing about digital art is that you can do it almost anywhere that you can sit with a laptop or notebook computer, instead of requiring ample studio space and ventilation. And with iterative "saves,"one can easily squeeze multiple images from the same "mother" image. The possibilities are endless.

Here you see three images borne of the same original "source" image. I'm able to work with brilliant color which I so love, and texture, to create my visual experience.

I've heard some pigment painters object to digital painting because "you can't see the track" of the painter's hand and arm, the "touch" and physicality of it. But I don't think that's true. Surely it IS different, but not altogether. Using a touch-sensitive stylus with a graphics tablet can create many effects and communicate many nuances. Okay, so you won't have the richness and "presence" of impasto, but in my opinion, the effects done with the digital pen can be just as visually compelling.

I hope everyone had a happy and fulfilling Mother's Day, and I look forward to catching up with you!

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

The Sacred Energy of Wild Places

There is an energy at the core of Life, a sacred energy felt most apparently and keenly in those places we may refer to as "wild." For some of us, that place may truly be in a remote wilderness area. More likely it will be a place that is just a bit out of the way. But it seems to me that the place, whether near or far from the beaten track, will be a place that is as yet unexploited and unspoiled by the touch of man.

My husband and I discovered such a place about two weeks ago. One of our mini-excursions into the Maine countryside brought us unexpectedly to a wooded marshland. It was just a tad off of a main road that was not quite a highway, but a two-lane road well-traveled by local traffic.

We made a right turn on a street whose name I can't remember. What I do remember is that it was indeed, a "proper" town street-sign in white and green with a name bestowed on this road. But it was not in any sense your typical suburban or even country road.


I was stricken with my first view of the marsh. Forest encroached on all sides, rising above the area on gentle hills. The trees still retained some of their autumn splendor but were at least partly given over to the stark winter nakedness that makes their skeletons so much more gestural and poignant than their leafy summer counterparts.



I got out of the car and scanned the near distance. Woods, woods, and more woods, with a wetland in the middle that coalesced into a quiet stream that wound its way through the thicket.


At the side of the road, cattails abounded, rich in their brown fur and contrasting the more sparse occurrence of milkweed pod. Some of the pods were open to the skyward flurry of their gossamer white fuzz, while others remained closed and pregnant with the seed loads of future plants.



A huge beaver lodge graced the middle of the watery pool on the right side of the road, commanding the eye's attention, as would a mansion on the vast grounds of a manicured estate.


But this was no manicured estate. Although fairly close to the town of Norway in southwest Maine, it had all the trappings of a true wilderness. Bird calls of all ilks met my ears, like beacons of a distant time in the annals of Creation. The milkweed seeds, picked up by an intermittent breeze, sailed into the blue dome that reflected on the water below. Everywhere there was life. Thorns, red winter berries, the milkweed, swaths of emerald moss and the texture of the slightly churned water. Sweet pungent air, sparkling with sunlight. The auburn of spent foliage rimming the swamp.


I could almost hear our dear Mother Earth inviting me in her mysterious tongues to partake. She wanted me to embrace her, smell her, feel her caress, hear her song. She wanted to delight me. She wanted to pay homage to herself for her dignity, sustained in the face of ages of exploitation and consumption, by her own stubborn Being.

Years ago, I wrote a young adult novel (one of four, actually) about a teenage girl who has to leave the lowland plain between Brazil and Peru, to climb deep into the Andes. She had to undertake this journey because her tribe was dying out, and their only chance was for her to try to retrieve the ancient medical secrets of the Incas, from whom she had descended. The Boutiquin, the ancient medicine chest of the forest floor was dying out and only she, Liana, with the tenacity of the vine for which she was named, could make her way into the highland to fetch the ancient wisdom.

Along the way, repeatedly, she bent her head to the Earth and heard the Hum of Being.

In my writing, the "Hum of Being" was a contrivance to enhance the plot, an embellishment in my manuscript to bring home the feminist and earth stewardship themes of my book.

But last week, in that patch of wild made of forest and river and swamp, filled with sunshine and seeds and berries and birdsong, I heard the Hum of Being for myself. Have you ever heard it? What is your experience with finding yourself surrounded by the magic of a sacred place? For me, it is the among the very best and most inspiring of life experiences.

All photos and text copyright Lynda Lehmann. All rights reserved.

If you would like to view my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.