"Deep Red Beauty" - Debra SissonNot all concepts of beauty are on how a person looks or is. However, it usually is about what makes you feel happy on the inside. I chose to start with a flower, particularly a rose, because in my eyes they are very beautiful. I love flowers and I know others feel the same way. The interesting part is that not all people feel like flowers are special and lovely. This painting has many reasons why it’s effective. There’s lots of texture, contrast, movement, value, and unity through colors.
Texture is, to me, a very important part of a painting. The rose is painted so realistically that it forms an even more real image in your head of what you see. This is helped by the texture, which has a soft tone about it.
Another thing that’s important is unifying through colors. Every color you see in the painting is also put somewhere else. There’s green in the stem and in the background, yellow in the stem and background, red in the flower, stem and background, etc. The unity brings the painting all together and makes it pleasing to look at.
“Deep Red Beauty”, although unified, also contains contrast. This picture has a slight contrast that makes it pop off the canvas. I think maybe because the colors are so unified that the bright red really gives the painting something special about it. It’s one of the first things the viewer sees. It is also achieved because the rest of the painting uses laid-back/dullish colors. None of them are as bright as the flower.
Another thing having to do with the colors is the value. There are plenty of darks and lights in this painting, but what makes them an asset to this picture is that they make sense. You can tell where the light is coming in. and see the shadow of the leaves and the whole flower. The light is actually presented in an interesting way. It’s sort of round, making it move along with the flower; which brings us to the next subject at hand.
Movement is successfully portrayed in this picture because the stem moves from left to right, curving and bringing your eye through the whole painting at the same time as directing it to the flower/rose. The light moves throughout the painting, as well. It is seen in the crevices of the rose and in front of the rose where the light is coming from. Again, it Is round, following the way of the stem. \
Debra Sisson does a very good job at using the elements in “Deep Red Beauty”, making her painting very delightful, whether you might enjoy flowers or not.
