Emily Lee - Gallery Visit

(The top picture is one that I took on my visit to the Calvin College Art Gallery, but did not feel as though it conveyed all I wanted, so I went online and found the same painting as an image. )

The plains of the west, green, gray, brown, tan, blue, white. These colors of a natural palette blend together to create a beautiful landscape painting. The road leading away from where we are currently sat looking out to the creation of God seeing nothing but blue skies and fields of crops.

I selected this piece because I found the colors interesting and the scenery alluring. The artist, Franklin D. Speyer’s, painted with oils on a piece of birch wood and this is how he created the piece, and the rest of the pieces in the collection he entitled, “West of the Imagination.” When I look at this piece I there are many parts that draw my eye. Immediately I am drawn to the first telephone pole near the middle of the painting. This could be the focal point of his piece. He also uses the technique of having a vanishing point, which I see as somewhere beyond the barn.

I believe the artist is going for a sense of imagination in this piece. Imagine yourself out west on this road and see what the beauty of the west is. Personally, I enjoy this piece because it feels as though I’m standing in the street looking out at the land. I imagine myself there because this painting is so lifelike and real. There is nothing about this painting that I could see myself changing because it is simply, elegant, and easy to look at, and to get lost in.

In this picture, I took I tried to convey a similar message while trying to add more vibrancy of color. I wanted to recreate vanishing point in the distance, while also trying to capture a focal point in the middle to initially draw the viewers eye into my photo.