Tag Archives: brown

Anasazi Autumn

image This is another work from May 17-18. I wanted to toy with shades of brown, house paint, and spray paint. I sprayed the entire canvas with a sort of light tan/umber and then sprayed the edges with shades of brown.  My goal with the house paint was to bring out as much contrast as possible.  I tried something different in its application;  I dipped an artist’s paint brush in the desired color and strung/dribbled it across the canvas, producing thin threads, or flicked it sharply to produce sharp, violent splatters such as the yellow ones in each of the lower corners.   It is 24″ x 36″.

I struggled for a name and came up with “Anasazi Autumn” only tonight.  I chose autumn because of the autumnal colors and Anasazi, because I created it in Aztec, which is in what was the heart of the Anasazi region about 800 years ago.

Desert Sun

Desert Sun, 2015
Desert Sun, 2015

Desert Sun is another of those that I created on May 17-18.  I tried to use some of the colors (acrylic and latex) that are found in the desert in the Four Corners area.  I used horizontal, dribbled lines for contours of the rolling landscape and a single, dark brown line at the “top” to simulate the mountains that can always be seen in the distance throughout the Four Corners area.  I wanted to give the sun the impression of being dominating, so I made it unnaturally big and roughly textured by laying acrylic paint on thick and then texturing it with a paintbrush. The painting is 24″ x 36″.

Distance

Distance by Phil Slattery
Distance
by Phil Slattery

 

This came from a photo of a mannequin in San Diego I took about 1995 with a 35mm camera.  At the time I wanted to catch a mood of distance between people, not necessarily lovers, but between people who had some connection be it relatives, lovers, friends whatever. Some years later after I bought Photoshop Elements 2.0, it was one of the first photos I toyed with when exploring Photoshop.  I wanted still to capture that feeling of distance and toyed with several features until I produced this. The various subtleties of gray and white and the odd browns and greens add to the feeling along with the mottled look (like a very grainy photo) and, of course, the vacant, hollow eyes and the neutral feeling from the lips combine to make this a quite poignant work.