Paintings by Mike McSorley, Mostly work with still life, but dabble with portraits, landscapes and anything that grabs my interest. I get caught up in patterns that exist in shadows reflected light, etc. Artist Statement:
It is inspiring the way light falls across a surface, changing it from darkness to light. As a child, I filled the margins of my notebooks; turning circles into spheres, extruding words, creating 3 dimensional objects from any shape. The original techniques of shading and extruding have been augmented with color theory, atmosphere, edge quality and experimentation. First the image is drawn using graphite and brushed around with turpentine. The background is blocked in, pulling the graphite into the paint and using it to darken and tone down the edges. This layer is thin and the ground of the board is allowed to reflect back. This increases the intensity of the color and by brushing, scraping and rubbing; the color can be augmented. Sometimes the lines are still visible in the finished painting and at other times I redraw the edges with pencil to add strength. I like to bring attention to the common objects around us.
