A world of details in one square inch
A world of details in one square inch. Garry Kaye’s dense, super-realistic paintings are sometimes confused for photos. On the other hand, artists sometimes say that his portraits, which may appear to be the work of a photorealist, actually represent a reality beyond what the mere camera can record. Like many painters since the time of Leonardo da Vinci, Kaye does employ photographic means in his process. But, make no mistake about it, the pictures of him are painted and painted and painted. It leads Kaye an aggregate of four to six months to complete a 3 × 4 foot painting. As for the photographic quotient, he approaches it most stylishly: with Adobe’s Photoshop program.
Right outside your window
Kaye studied sculpture and drawing ideas easy in college. After graduating, he worked as a sculptor for a time. He then turned to farming and gardening on the family farm on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, and he painted for pleasure. Nearly a decade ago, Kaye began to take his art more seriously. His first work was impressionistic, but as he proceeded to paint, the details took over. His subject is the landscape of his childhood, much of it observed from his living room window. He presents nature in the vibrant and brilliant colors of sunlight.
The greatest of what I design is right outside my glass. I remember it very well and I can understand it. However, seeing is only the starting point for Kaye. His acrylic paintings often show a chase scene, with a lake or shoreline near the center of the painting. A thicket or a dense grove is reflected like a mirror image in the water. It is in these spaces where the pictures show his super-reality since the parts seem quadrupled. Seeing a painting is about using the electric super zoom feature on a state-of-the-art computer or tablet; this is what Kaye uses to produce the effect.
On your computer director
To create that effect, a graphics editing program. It zooms in on the digital images so that a 2-inch square fills the computer screen. It’s not just about what my eye sees. It’s about how the camera sees the elements of the scene. This ability to enlarge small details on the computer allows Kaye to inject his paintings’ super-realism. Observers point out how much organization is in work, how much knowledge. It is work related to. A simple apple tree leaf that can look green takes on a purple or violet hue. Or it may have a shiny pink or blue aura. It’s this level of detail that I’m trying to capture.
Find the photo
Kaye’s creative process begins with the camera. He consumes several time taking photos, mainly during October and November. Summer is too green. We exist in a sea of blue and green, and the season of the year there are also hollyhocks and roses, speaking of warm salty spring in fall. Then comes a long selection process to decide on a particular photo. It takes me a long time to pick the right one since I will work with it for months. A collage artist whom he met at art school assists him in the selection process.
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Adjust the picture
The preferred photo is then placed, which he uses to separate and zoom in on particular regions to see what the camera has arrested because there is a sea of the part. At this limit, Kaye manages the digital model (not too much, sometimes I crop the photo, but usually adjust the contrast and brightness) and adapts the image to reflect what he is looking for. I print the image on numerous 8×10 sheets that I hang up and refer to later when I’m painting in detail.
Blur by color
Technology kicks in again at this stage when Kaye uses Photoshop’s Blur tool to go back and adjust the entire digital image, tweaking a few details, including an occasional pole or phone line. This method helps him get a quick and simplified initial view to focus on the color he wants for the background. Next, It begins the actual painting process, using as a guide a unique cardboard and grid tool that is designed and created to divide the canvas into smaller pieces that match Photoshop’s electronic grid.
First, he uses a large brush to cover the entire canvas with two or three coats of paint. Focusing on the background, he builds the color with very little detail, starting from the top left and working his way through the painting. It sets my palette and allows me to see the color combinations I hope will bring the painting to life.
Zoom in for details
After setting the colors to the background, Kaye vaguely sketches the details from the ground to the foreground, including the positions of items such as trees, branches, and leaves. The next and most slow action in the process is to add more and more carefully selected details, one square inch at a time, with the help of his grid tool. At this stage, Kaye is referring to both one of the 8×10 photocopied sheets of his original digital image and the greatly enlarged detailed knowledge from each separate electric grid on his computer director. He uses Photoshop’s Zoom device to expand operations of his monitor as auras, or more colors, appear on the leaves and branches.
These details of the atmosphere that he paints with colors that we cannot see in the image with the naked eye. Using her handmade grid tool to orient her brush strokes on the canvas, Kaye completes a 6-inch square every two to three days. Sometimes this can be painful. There are low moments where I feel like I’m never going to finish, which can be quite overwhelming. The grid goes well for me as it encourages me to focus on the shorter picture and prevents me from becoming depressed. This way, she can complete two or three jobs a year. Photoshop technology allows Kaye and his wife to travel south in December for their annual three-month work vacation in Mexico, where she finishes her paintings.
Photographic aberrations
The key to experiencing Kaye’s paintings is to notice her use of photographic aberrations near the center of each one. In Frost in the Lower Field, there is a chaotic patch of white frost near the center of the painting. This patch of ice reads like a blur to the details in the rest of the picture and a counterpoint to the sharp image of the lonely dead fruit still hanging from the tree. The intense flash of light can be seen just as we see it in an extra exposed photo. This element produces energy within the latent landscape in Kaye’s work.
I feel like I’m treating the painting as a sculpture, says the former sculptor. I am a three-dimensional person. I want people to as that they can enter behind the trees that I paint and document the landscape. Kaye wants us to approach the staff with his paintings. I paint with my nose an inch from the canvas. It is how I want people to see my work too. You need the details; you have to be close because I use a lot of colors. When you walk away, you don’t see it. When you get closer, the painting becomes a different color. I like that a painting looks good from 20 feet away, then viewers look at it and discover even more.
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