Dynamic Art Captures Movement and Energy

© 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, 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.

Dynamic Pastels

© Betty Butler, Bright Red Blossoms

Here 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, bottom right, I echoed the yellow-orange flower patterns with loose stripes of the complimentary blue and purple in the background. Like my digital work, I tried to instill dynamic energy with line and texture.

© Betty Butler, Three Yellow Mums

                                                                                

Colorful Work Featured in Spring Exhibition

  

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

Awakening Tulips, right, 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, left 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.

Digital Collages Included in Photography Exhibition

 

© Betty Butler, Setting Sunflowers of Autumn, Digital Collage, 2023

I am honored to have two of my pieces included in the Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art, Washington, D.C. One of the works, Setting Sunflowers of Autumn above, alludes to shorter days and earlier fall sunsets. Like the petals above, seasonal leaves also sport yellow, orange, and scarlet hues. In addition, I am intrigued by fractals, nature's self-repeating forms at various scales. The center disc of a sunflower grows in a fractal spiral, so I created a green and black background texture to echo this effect.

More Autumn Colors, in Pastel

Although, Autumn Colors in a Vase above, is a pastel still-life, it was inspired by the season's colors. To describe my vision, I wrote a short narrative after a drive among the hills where I live: in Wisconsin, along the Mississippi, autumn brings a feast for the eyes. I noticed this driving a winding road between the bluffs, rolling and climbing toward the blue sky and then plunging into the valleys below. The mid-green trees displayed sun-kissed touches of yellow, and I even noted an occasional shock of red. Interspersed among the hills were farmlands offering a scene of golden stalks of corn. Around the curve, I observed beige prairie grasses that rolled up and down the terrain.