Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Spirit Of The Sea

Voyagers, oil painting by Melody Phaneuf
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From a life of constant motion, the objects chosen for the painting, Voyagers rest, echoing their past. Along with shells that refused to stay submerged, floats mark a rhythmic line of placement through the vertical composition.

Glass objects frolic with the light, sometimes halting and pushing it backwards, sometimes allowing it to penetrate, making it transparent. The floats’ etched surfaces add another texture to the composition and one more layer to the story.

Light, movement, and the forces that animate are what compel me to paint. Each picture is a quest, ultimately revealing the mechanics of an enigmatic realm of experience, the result of certain combinations of sensory input, reason and active imagination.

The floats and shells in Voyagers, having lived upon and within the movement of waves, convey to me the spirit of the sea. Breathing color and reflected light enlivens the arrangement. Voyagers suggests an eagerness to tell us a story.


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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.

Make Your Life a Work of Art~
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Flow

Flow, Oil Painting by Melody Phaneuf
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Watching moving water create ever-changing abstract patterns is mesmerising. The rhythmic flow of cause and effect reminds me of a perpetual motion machine that I saw at the science museum one childhood summer.

Waves surge up, intersect, and divide direction. Movement and light expose and interweave line, shape and color in kaleidoscopic flow.

Conceivably, like snowflakes, no two, wave patterns are alike. No evidence remains to test the theory, only an impression on the memory. Or perhaps like particles in quantum physics, they change when someone is looking at them.

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Water's Edge, by Melody Phaneuf
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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.

Make Your Life a Work of Art~
Online shopping at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

Download our free 2010 Calendar
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Painting The Park, Gloucester

Triton's Call, 20 x 16 oil painting by Melody Phaneuf
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There is an enchanted park in Gloucester where I love to paint. Its mythic quality reminds me of the coast of Brittany, haunted by the ghosts of Parsifal and Merlin.

I have the sense a presence here, inhabiting a dimension that I cannot see, the carved steps in enormous rocks their stairways to invisible second floor bedrooms. Pink and ochre granite seems to radiate energy that balances too many hours in fluorescent lighting and ambient noise.

From high on the rocks I can look back at where I live, watch the bridge endlessly raise and lower, funneling boats from the Annisquam River into the harbor. People run, others bicycle, some walk dogs while I blissfully paint and observe the distant animation of a busy world.


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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.


Make Your Life a Work of Art~
Online shopping at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop


Download our free 2010 Calendar
Commission a painting
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Paintings Above ~

Yellow Trees by The Sea,
Melody Phaneuf,
8 x 10 oil painting

Pathway, Melody Phaneuf,
8 x 10 oil painting

Halfmoon Beach, Melody Phaneuf,
8 x 10 oil painting
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Seeing Harmony

Blue Hydrangeas, oil painting by Melody Phaneuf
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Art is a Harmony parallel with Nature~ Paul Cezanne


We seem to have need for the structures that create harmony. Harmonic relationships are built on similarities. Visual similarity can clothe itself in many ways; line, shape, size, color, and texture are some aspects.

Seeing an underlying order helps to simplify a complex subject. In Blue Hydrangeas, the order was found in the negative shapes, which carved out the flowers and visually rhymed with one another. Color and textural similarities further enhance the idea and are balanced against contrasting values. The complex tangle of hydrangeas is seen as a harmonic arrangement.

There is always a connection to be found. Looking for harmony is often a satisfying solution.

Blue Hydrangeas, 8 x 10 oil painting by Melody Phaneuf

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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.

Make Your Life a Work of Art~
Online shopping at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

Download our free 2010 Calendar
Commission a painting
Facebook
Twitter