The strong blues and golds of the late afternoon light in the Scottish Highlands seared themselves into my memory so completely that I had to paint the scene upon returning to my studio. I carried the thoughts of the light hitting the water and the sheep grazing lazily in the near-by field. The sky was heavy that day, allowing the strong sun to break through at regular intervals. The sky needed to be painted wet gray into wet paper to give its feeling of weight. I felt that I wanted to give texture to the mountains and to the foreground to enhance their shapes and colors. The horizontal attitude of the piece was emphasized to convey the vastness of the landscape.
I live in the upstate area of New York State. This locale is noted for its Finger Lakes – long narrow lakes formed by the glaciers thousands of years ago. The surrounding hills are, in many areas, covered with vineyards which lead to the lakes. Fields of patchwork colors and shapes divide the landscape into interesting patterns, flat areas which act as a foil to the upright verticals of the vineyard rows. I have always been enthralled with the movement of the vineyard “lines”, leading us somewhere, not knowing where. Using the format of this painting, a picture within a picture with two different simultaneous directions, allows me to express the particulars of the area, the grape vines and their abstracted shapes, with the universal of the area, the patterned fields and hills.
Provence has so many wonderful aspects to its landscape: its vineyards, its distinctive trees, its misty hills, and its charming architecture, just to name some. Because I was conducting a painting workshop in pleine air in Provence I was directly influenced by these unique elements. Later, in the studio, my purpose in this painting was to combine many of these aspects into one unified statement that evoked the feeling of the area. By breaking up the space of the surface and using pattern to define some of the shapes, I was able to combine these elements that were such an important part of the landscape.
I found the grey/green of the Tuscan olive trees to be a beautiful color that I wanted to feature in a painting. The trees themselves are graceful in the angular turns of their limbs and they give the sense of motion as they recede in rows. This painting features the olive tree while giving us the feeling of the surrounding Tuscan hills. The distant buildings, with architecture typical of the area, cause us to pause and wonder who might be living amid this beautiful landscape. The pattern and colors are meant to convey the warmth of the summer sun, the sun that one sees causes the olive tree foliage to sometimes glisten as silver.
Course dates
4 June - 11 June 2011
g.a. Sheller is recognized as one of the country's leading artists in the synthesis of watercolor and photography, and is a renowned colorist whose paintings highlight landscapes and plant forms. Her work is featured in the 1997 Winter issue of Watercolor with an article written by M. Stephen Doherty, editor of American Artist Magazine.
She is a member of Who's Who in American Art, Strathmore's Who's Who and holds a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the College of New Rochelle with additional graduate study at Pennsylvania State University and with Robert Reed at Yale University. g.a. is profiled in the Who's Who of the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England and has been named to the 2000 Outstanding Artists and Designers of the 20th Century by the IBC. g.a. is an associate member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society.
g.a. has completed over 100 commissions and her work is found in corporate and private collections in the U.S. and overseas. She has received numerous awards in national exhibitions and has shown her work throughout the U.S. and England. For over 30 years, g.a. has conducted painting workshops in the US, Ireland, Scotland, France, and Greece. g.a. Sheller teaches ongoing painting and drawing classes at the Creative Workshop of the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester (NY), where she has been on the faculty since 1983.
You can find out more about g.a. on her website, www.gasheller.com
