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The Letter: Step 8

The Letter

In the original scrap photos, the model is wearing a white shirt. After some consideration, I decided to change the color to the same light pink of the flowers in the bouquet. I wanted the figure to stand out a little more from the rather complex backdrop of the clouds, and the pink seemed like a nice choice. I like the tie-in with the bouquet since the girl is sort of the flower among the buildings. Once the shirt was pained, I finished the last few strands of hair over the shoulders. There’s something quite satisfying about no longer having a disembodied head floating in the clouds.

The Letter

Before moving on to the skirt, I had a go at the flowers. I think a quick word about symbolism might be appropriate here. I’ve never been a fan of the sort of symbolic painting that requires a degree in art history or a dictionary of historical meanings in order to unravel some hidden message. I selected the flowers in the bouquet for purely aesthetic reasons. However, I knew sooner or later the symbolic meaning of the flowers would be questioned so I looked them up. After all, it would never do to find out a year after completing the piece that I had inadvertently painted a lovely scene of a beautiful girl surrounded by towers of concrete and glass who for some reason happens to be holding a ‘lost-love/congrats on the leprosy’ bouquet. So what kind of flowers are they? I suppose the obvious ‘guy’ answer would be that they are pink and white flowers. Actually, they are supposed to be Amaryllis (the pink ones), Calla Lillis (the long white and green ones), and Freesia. A little research tuned up these common meanings associated with each flower. Turns out I got lucky. Calla Lillis mean beauty, Amaryllis mean pride and Freesia are for innocence. Couldn’t have chosen better for the composition.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 12:25 pm and is filed under The Letter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “The Letter: Step 8”

  1. Lauren Hutton Says:
    September 19th, 2007 at 6:36 am

    Lauren Hutton…

    I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….

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About Bryan Larsen ~

Bryan Larsen

"I was born on February 12, 1975, and have been drawing as long as I can remember. By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist, although at the time I didn't have a clear idea of how exactly I would use my talents to make a living.

"As I continued studying art, I began to suspect that fine visual art was dead. No one seemed interested in teaching students how to draw well, or paint well. More often than not, my own skills exceeded those of my instructors.

"The only field left that seemed to require good drawing, painting, and compositional skills was illustration, and therefore I began studying illustration at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I became even more convinced that I had made the right decision in staying away from fine art as I endured course after course of required "drawing" and "painting" classes in which instructors required me to draw with "less focus", or use ridiculous materials such as shellac, glue, sand, salt, etc.

"My second year at Utah State, I met Damon Denys. In discussing Art with him I realized that there were other people who believed that technique and subject matter were indispensable components of any work of art. I then decided that I would work to develop my own painting skills with the purpose of creating artwork that I considered worthy of being called Fine Art.

"Since that time, I have studied on my own: Drawing from live models to learn the human form, studying proper painting techniques from any source I could find ample reason to trust, and developing a philosophy of Art based on reason, and life on earth.

"My goal is to portray the heroic and romantic in human nature and human achievement in a realistic style and a modern setting. I place particular emphasis on composition, technique, realistic detail, proper craftsmanship and consistency of style."