International Artist February - March 2019/ No.125

When I started working with International Artist magazine nearly 15 years ago, one of the first things I saw was a sign our publisher, Vincent Miller, had hanging on the wall of our Scottsdale office. It simply read, “How did you paint that?” For Vincent, that is the entire thrust of this magazine—to provide insight on how some of the best artists around the world create the wonderful works of art they have become known for. As time went on, we discovered that more and more artists were offering workshops out of their own studios in order to share this knowledge. Only recently, we came up with a handy guide to these workshops and now it appears in every issue of this magazine. We are proud to say that the…

Grand Prize Suzy Smith Grand Prize is a four-page editorial feature in American Art Collector magazine Contemporary Viewpoint Inspiration strikes for artist Suzy Smith at almost every turn for her contemporary realistic oil paintings. “Across all my work, my theme is youth and beauty, texture and detail,” she says. “I have always tried to add many layers to a painting, contrasting foreground and background, whether a still life or a nude. And even though I have been concentrating on painting the female figure for the past 10 years, I always return to my roots of painting flowers from my garden, which is where my painting journey began.” Each painting Smith creates begins behind the camera. She takes hundreds of photos regardless of the subject, and from there her future paintings…

My Inspiration Most of what I paint these days are flowers—peonies and roses in particular. I am awed by the mathematics of repeating patterns underlying their beauty and I methodically seek to reveal the intricacy and elegance of their design. Like so much of the natural world, flower blossoms grow and develop according to the mathematics of precise logarithmic spirals, increasing in size but never changing their shape, ever growing without ever changing proportions. Their color and variety command my attention while the blossoming of a flower triggers the sense that something miraculous is coming. I don’t have to travel very far to find them—many private and public flower gardens are just a short drive from my studio. My Design Strategy The paintings I create are based on a composite…

Who’s to declare when we are artists? Who? — Harley Brown My Inspiration Nature is my inspiration. Flowers often become metaphors for me influenced by music, dance and light. I delight in their tenacity to spring forth into the world from bud to emergence as they reveal their delicate beauty while in full bloom. They become soulful expressions of sensual femininity expressing the circle of life and renewal itself. I am drawn to capture that moment of full bloom, the simple elegance in the turn of a leaf, subtle shifts in color and the radiance of light as it interacts with form. With this piece, I was entranced by the way the light danced on the petals. I loved how the deep magenta played and contrasted with the subtle pale…

My Inspiration The transcendent beauty of these ranunculi was the inspiration for my painting, Dazzled by Your Charms (Ranunculus in Provençal Pitcher). In the Victorian era giving a bouquet of ranunculi was considered to be a way of saying, “I’m dazzled by your charms.” They are captivating blossoms of countless swirling petals. My Design Strategy The extremely subtle transitions of hue and value in each ranunculus bloom make them a difficult challenge to paint. I decided to use maximum contrast to highlight the blossoms against a dark background so that they would take on an otherworldly glow. I placed them in a hand-painted Arlesian (Provençal) pitcher—a favorite treasure I bought while teaching a workshop in France. In painting this I was attempting to communicate my love for and fascination with…

My Inspiration Growing up in Johannesburg, South Africa, with its ideal climate for plants, I developed a love of gardening and the beauty of flowers. I loved art and started with watercolours, especially flowers, later venturing into oils. In Spain, I was overwhelmed by the variety and colours of hibiscus. My love of flowers, enhanced by the ideal light and beauty of Spain, excited me and I began to take many photographs of the flowers for painting subjects. One day whilst walking past residential gardens I came across this double hibiscus in full bloom. I immediately started taking photographs knowing that I had to paint it. My Design Strategy Having studied the many photographs I had taken, I chose this composition as I loved the shapes, highlights and shadows, especially…