((L) King Leo, (R) Sage by Katherine Taylor)
I am a longtime Central Oregon oil painter, although I began my art career, strangely, right after I got my first job teaching high school English in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Although I had worked hard on my Secondary Ed degree and found I loved teaching (still do), it’s as if I suddenly realized I chose the wrong profession.
I continued to teach anyway but decided to take oil painting classes after my school day ended. My first art instructors were classically trained, so that’s how I came to develop my Renaissance style of painting. During visits to Italy, all I would do is stare for hours at Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings where they exaggerated strong lights and darks (i.e., chiaroscuro). This made a huge impression on me, and I began paying closer attention to modern artists like Edward Hopper and Odd Nerdrum who also used that technique, and this has informed my work to this day.
I teach classical oil painting now instead of English literature. Instructing art students is not only inspiring, but it has made me a better painter. I’ve discovered that what I am really teaching is light. Actually, we can’t see light itself; we can only perceive its rays by observing how the objects of our world reflect them. Without illumination, we can’t appreciate the real beauty of a person’s face or a sparkling stream (nor paint it). The temperature of the light itself (e.g., warm on a sunny day, cool on a cloudy one) also informs how to paint something, not to mention the endless and subtle influences of light and color between objects close to one another.
Understanding the physics of light is a never-ending source of fascination for me. Frankly, this very understanding is how all great paintings get made. That’s why it’s so much better to paint from life than solely from photographs (which never capture the nuances you need to make a decent painting). With that said, I can’t get wild animals to pose for me! But years of painting from life (still life in my studio and plein aire outdoors) has been the most reliable technique I’ve come across for understanding the true nature of light, so that even when forced to rely on poor photographic references, I know what to modify. Painting (and celebrating) light remains my passion to this day.
My work can be viewed at katherine-taylor.com. The galleries that represent me include Tumalo Art Co (Bend), Hood Avenue Art (Sisters) and Going To The Sun Gallery (Whitefish, Montana). My month-long wildlife art show, highlighting the good works of the nonprofit Think Wild, occurs this August at Tumalo Art Co.