Tag Archives: digital collage

Dynamic Art Captures Movement and Energy

dynamic art

© Betty Butler, Cosmic Ginkgo Leaves, Digital Collage  

I am honored to have three works in the Flow exhibition at the Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art. It is currently on display online through December 7, 2024. The jurors were looking for dynamic art capturing movement and energy.

In one of the selected digital collages, above, ginkgo leaves, with their wavy shape and curvy stem, reflect my love of natural forms. To create this image, I used a technique that involves spreading out the leaves, taking photographs, and silhouetting them in black and white in Photoshop. Then, I overlapped the photos into an exciting composition and added strokes of watercolor-like digital painting. The result is colorful leaves that lay on a star-lit background. Finally, to pull the image together, I drew a galactic-like swirling line on top of the entire image.

Dynamic Pastel Paintings

© Betty Butler, Bright Red Blossoms, 10 x 12in., © Betty Butler, Three Yellow Mums, 8 x 11in.

Above are some of my recent works in soft pastel. Bright Red Blossoms, left, invited a bold color treatment of red, blue, and light purple. With Three Yellow Mums, right, I echoed the yellow-orange flower patterns with loose stripes of complimentary blue and purple in the background. Like my digital work, I tried to instill dynamic energy with line and texture.   
 

Boston Gallery Celebrates the Perfectly Imperfect

perfectly imperfect

© Betty Butler, Australian Fires, Digital Collage/Painting, 2020

I am thrilled to be part of Boston’s Art Fluent Gallery online exhibition, Beyond the Scars. The curators sought work that celebrates perfectly imperfect things, bursting with character and emotion—works highlighting the charm of irregularities and asymmetries, turning so-called defects into striking focal points. Within these stories, emotions, and scars, we find a raw vulnerability that uncovers the true beauty in it all.

Australian Fires, above, is part of my climate change series. It was fueled by a mix of sadness and anger at the news coverage of the Australian fires in 2019 – 2020. In this digital collage I started with black and white photos of almost barren trees. On top of that layer, I laid down some fiery orange and red digital strokes. Then, I used a rapid succession of black dots and lines, which, unbeknownst to me, created the illusion of a hilly landscape and a fire tornado. The final bright splash of yellow occurred with a Photoshop maneuver, which resulted in an unexpected surprise of the sun peeking through. This added a touch of hope to an otherwise somber scene.

New Pastels Utilize Warm Oranges and Yellows

perfectly imperfect
© Betty Butler, Pear and Apricot Group, Pastel Drawing

These pastel drawings feature the warm colors of yellow and orange. I added a complementary light purple-blue background to enhance their vibrancy. Unlike the digital image above, which happened in an almost accidental series of occurrences, these pastels are more deliberate and traditional. While I love arranging and patterning items in collage, drawing requires close attention to proportion and accurate shapes. It is challenging, yet freeing to switch between the two media.

perfectly imperfect

© Betty Butler, Flowers on Table Cloth, Pastel Drawing

Work Accepted in Spring Equinox Exhibition

spring

Gallery of the Spring Equinox Exhibition. My work: top row left and bottom row right 

I am honored to be included in the PIX Museum of the National Association of Digital Artists Spring Equinox Exhibition. The gallery states that this juried show features the work of digital artists from around the world. The Spring Equinox theme brings to mind nature, sunlight, and renewal. The show is live and can be viewed at pixmuseum.org through May 17, 2024.

Awakening Tulips, is a composition of silhouetted tulips filled with colors ranging from deep magenta to pastel blues, purples, and greens. For contrast, I placed the colors at angles in some places and blended them in others. Darkness to Light alludes to the spring equinox, with its longer, lighter days following the darker, deeper winter nights. For example, a vase with a single flower evolves from black to another in medium-toned teal to a final one in bright white.

Shadows of the Season

spring
© Betty Butler, Tulip Shadows, Digital Collage, 2024

I have intertwined colorful tulips with their corresponding shadows in this new collage, Tulips Shadows. This creates a contrast between feelings of joy and foreboding. Just as tulips symbolize spring and new beginnings, shadows can represent darkness, loss, and fear. As I searched online for help in describing these oppositions, I found a quote by the acclaimed cinematographer Conrad Hall (Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid.) He states, “There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors… it’s an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job.” Although I am a two-dimensional visual artist and not a filmmaker, the challenges have much in common.

What’s Black and White and Blue All Over?          

whats black and white and blue all over
© Betty Butler, Abstract Vases, Digital Collage, 2024

What’s black and white and blue all over? Well, my new digital collage, Abstract Vases, is just that. This piece is devoid of my usual bright colors but explores the dramatic shape of a photographed vase displaying a single chrysanthemum. This vase is then repeated. The original vase and flower are white, while I added black and teal blue to the others in Photo Shop. Finally, I layered these forms over an expressionist digital painting, subtle in color but rich in pattern.

Black, White, Blue and More in Pastel

I have been observing these vases for a while through my work in pastels. The work above left, Three Ceramic Orbs, reflects the white vessels on a black towel with a background of subtle blue violet.

The upper right pastel, Plant sans Flowers, is a more colorful work. It is a portrait of an African violet plant. Even without the lovely purple flowers, the plant’s leaves are rich in various sizes and patterns. They have a slight sheen, which calls for highlights in places. Their undulating pattern invited me to draw with multiple shades of greens. Lastly, I added blues and purples for a harmonic color pallet.

Daffodils Inspire Artists and Poets

  © Betty Butler, Multi-color Daffodils I, Digital Collage, 2023

As a visual artist, I am inspired by daffodils. Then, recently, I was searching for a poem I had read in high school when I stumbled across one of 18th-century William Wordsworth’s poems, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” It is commonly known as “Daffodils.” Reading the poem reminded me of my childhood experience receiving a poetry workbook with spaces to illustrate the poems. I remember vigorously drawing in the pictures. It was so much like that experience, but in reverse; I had just found a companion poem for my new digital art.

It is a poem reflecting the joy and wonder of encountering a host of golden daffodils. I am also inspired by the bright yellow flowers and their visual repetitions of cones, petals, and long stems. Therefore, I arranged them in an exciting composition, photographed them, and played with the elements of color and light. You can read the first two stanzas of the poem below.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”  
                          
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.  

William Wordsworth
daffodil art
© Betty Butler, Multi-color Daffodils II
daffodils inspire artist and poets
© Betty Butler, Photography of daffodils

Art Accepted in Completely Color 2023 Exhibition

I am honored to be accepted into the Completely Color 2023 virtual exhibition presented by the Inter-Society Color Council. Their stated mission is to connect across disciplines to share knowledge and experience regarding the science, technology and aesthetics of color. The exhibition will be on view during their conference, Color Impact 2023, at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. Later this summer it will be on view on their website, with my work shown in the professional category.

My accepted work, Color Collage, is a digital collage of chrysanthemums in a split-complementary scheme that shifts color from yellow-green to red to purple in an almost rainbow-like manner. Complementary colors are across the color wheel from each other and bring out the intensity in the other. The conference requested a short video from entrants to explore their process. Here is my video, which is only one minute and thirty seconds long.

New Pastel Drawing on Website

art work accepted in completely color 2023 exhibition
© Betty Butler, Amber Pears, Pastel on Paper, 2023

I love the taste and especially the shape of fruit. Readily available, its sensuous curvy lines and strong hues make it an excellent subject for pastel work. As much as I appreciate this produce, these three pears took their toll on me and I almost gave up on this rendition. It turns out the first drawing was not engaging. So, in frustration, I started to compose the pears abstractly on a new sheet of paper and found what was missing. The free-hand abstract pears varied in size, shape, and angle. Therefore, I added some of those components to the first picture, intensified the color, and voila!

Color in Winter

PASTEL DRAWINGS
© Betty Butler, Yellow Iris, Digital Collage, 14 x 11 in, 2022

Those of us living in the northern climes know winter has dished out its traditional dose of cold and snowy weather. Therefore, I am thinking ahead to warmer days when irises bloom. I began this image with photographs of irises. Then I digitally drew an iris on top of the layered photos. The next question was, what color would the drawn flower become? I chose yellow, the opposite of purple on the color wheel; this opposition brings out the brightest qualities in the other color. I also allowed some violet petals to peek through. Finally, the yellow overlaps and under-laps the black marks to integrate the image.

Interestingly, the iris takes its name from the Greek for rainbow, which is also the name for the Greek goddess of the rainbow. This is possibly about the wide variety of flower colors found among the many species.

Introducing “Pastel Drawings” to my Portfolio

PASTEL DRAWINGS
© Betty Butler, Four Green Apples, Pastel on Paper, 8 x 14 in, 2022

As I mentioned in my last blog, I have been drawing and creating pastels of natural forms. While the same principles of color, line, and texture apply, the hands-on work with soft pastels is a nice variation from my digital work. See my pastel drawings portfolio.

Work Included in Art Journal

art included in journal
© Betty Butler, Flowers for Ukraine, 12in. x 12in, Digital Painting, 2022

I am honored to be included in the Transformative Power of Art Journal, summer edition, 2022. Creators submitted work on the topic of “on war and peace.” This international forum reviews sharable media from written to visual to musical creations. With Flowers for Ukraine, I began by digitally painting the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag on my screen. From there, I overlaid the flag with loosely drawn flowers. Finally, I added various shades of red because even though I might hope that flowers would offer comfort, there is no escaping the bloodshed that results from warfare.

This journal adds to the ongoing scholarly conversation about forms of art as catalysts of transformation, whether experienced by witnessing a work by another artist, or by the process of creation, and often it is through the experience of these two in conjunction with each other where transformation occurs.

Amy M Anderson, PhD, MFA, MALS, Publisher, Transformative Power of Art Journal

Tuxedo Tulips

art included in journal
© Betty Butler, Tuxedo Tulips, 14in. x 12in, Digital Collage, 2022

This new work employs a more positive approach to using flowers as subject matter. The lighthearted title Tuxedo Tulips refers to the black and white digital line drawing, which contrasts a softer pink and purple photograph. Lastly, for added interest, I layered a halftone texture on some areas of the image.

Exhibiting Primary Colors

(c) Betty Butler Color in Profile, Digital Collage, 2021

I am excited to announce my acceptance of the image Color in Profile (above) into the photography-digital category of the Exhibition of Primary Colors at Light Space and Time Online Gallery. The juror was seeking original work that included any combination of the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) from which all other colors are mixed.

Many great minds have theorized how colors form, mix and evoke human emotions. Surprisingly, not all theories came from artists, but also from scientists such as Sir Isaacs Newton (law of gravity) and literary figures like the acclaimed German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Newton experimented with shining white light through a prism against a wall. He discovered it break into a rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. On the other hand, Goethe’s treatise, Theory of Colours, focused on many personal color observations. Finally, this book and others were read with great enthusiasm by contemporary painters, particularly Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh, who put the theories into practice in their paintings.

The Black and White of Color

(c) Betty Butler, Color in High Contrast, Digital Collage, 2021

Some color theorists name white as the combination of all color and black as the absence of all color.   As I was working on a collage with flowers from the same photo shoot, I had the impulse to void them of color. So, I changed them from their natural color to a high contrast of black and white with a Photoshop filter. At times I am visually attracted to high-contrast images with touches of color. Therefore, I digitally painted colors into a few of the flowers. I hope you find the effect intriguing.

Summer Remembered

Summer
© Betty Butler, Firefly Garden, Digital Collage, 2021

Before we face colder weather, I would like to recall last summer by describing this new digital collage. I was inspired one July evening by a multitude of beautiful lights among the flowers. Not only were the patterns intriguing, but I have also since learned that these flashes function as the insects’ mating language. How could I portray these fireflies’ dancing lights in an art form, I wondered? Well, first I took several photographs of hosta flowers. Then, almost by accident, the line-work in my digital painting morphed into an image resembling lights in motion. Therefore, I was satisfied that I had captured this magical scene. 

Summer Exhibition at Envision Gallery

Summer

The gallery was searching for work that embodied the essence of summer.

© Betty Butler, Playful Blossoms, Digital Collage, 2021

I am honored to have been selected for Envision Arts online gallery, based in Dallas, Texas, titled Summer II. One of my chosen works is featured above. The gallery was searching for work that embodied the essence of summer, be it subject matter, color, or feeling. It’s a contemporary show, with artists from various US states and Moscow, Russia, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Barcelona, Spain. Although the exhibition went online in June 2021, you can view the show here in the gallery’s archive.