3418 Sleepy Hollow Lane, Punta Gorda, FL 33950
 Tel 941-626-4502 Email : michaelvires47@yahoo.com
 

Artist Michael Vires' Website

"Painting the Light "                                                 

  It’s not enough to paint something with recognizable shapes and colors. You may say, ”Oh, that’s pretty. It’s some trees in the middle of the forest.”  That’s accomplishable with a few layers of paint. That’s merely the underpainting. But to give the work life, I take it to the next level.

 Experiencing one moment when you say to yourself, wow!  Look at this. This moment, this light, these colors, and the way it all makes me feel
…this is the moment I want my painting to be about.

  I take photos and make sketches but most importantly I intellectually, mentally and emotionally and visually record the moment. Omitting any one of these assures failure. With this combination of photo, sketch (en plein air)   for reference, I begin back in the studio reconstructing on canvas that moment.

 As I begin painting I start reliving the experience as I remember it. Once the underpainting is established I enter a phase of the process where it is an experimental search for color combinations that visually express that moment. It is these colors collectively that convey a remembered experience more than the actual accuracy of the shapes of things.        

 There is no formula for the colors, direction of strokes, or the laying in of the paint.  I focus on responding to the subject matter’s relationship with light, form, and my composition. The photos and sketches are only enhancers to help keep the vision and memory of that moment alive. Eventually there’s a point of departure from the sketches and photos where I put them out of sight. Afterwards, all is left is searching for the temperature and value of the colors that convey that moment when I experienced the original visual and emotional sensation.

 That’s when I clean my brushes and sign the painting.

Michael Vires