This document summarizes David Kelley's art exhibition titled "Art Making" which showcases the process and evolution of several of his paintings over multiple versions. It discusses how Kelley was inspired to create 7 different paintings of beech trees at Highfield Hall over 8 years. It also describes how Kelley took an old digital image of pears and reworked it, changing the colors and background to create a new pastel painting. Finally, it explains how Kelley finds new art ideas by revisiting old sketches and develops them further.

1. Beech Trees at
Historic
Highfield Hall
The original reference photos used for these paintings, were taken on a
beautiful early autumn afternoon in 2007, the year of the first painting.
There was no plan to create a series, but periodically I’d review the photos
and get re-inspired again.
To date, 7 versions have been painted and demonstrate how a simple,
but appealing scene can be painted many different ways. They were fun
creating and other artists should try the same with your favorite still lifes,
landscapes, or other images. It’s also a great way to loosen up.
Since“Art Making”is also about materials, several brands of soft pastels,
pastel pencils and Conte Crayons were used over different supports or
paper backgrounds. These include black Conte pastel paper and board,
Arches watercolor paper plus tracing or tissue paper which, incidentially
was first introduced as a support by Edgar Degas in the 19th century
and recently approved for today’s use by the Pastel Society of America.
Evolution of the
Beech Tree Paintings
at Historic Highfield
Hall.
David Kelley: Art Making! April 1 - May 6, 2015
There are many ways to make art and many steps involved from initial
concept to finished work. This exhibition illustrates the “Art Making”steps
regularly used by Cape Cod David Kelley for the art in this exhibition.
They include: Beech Trees at Historic Highfield Hall - a look at the variation
in the 7 paintings done of the same scene over an 8 year period.
Development of“The Pear Images” - the steps involved in the re-make of an
old image into something exciting, comtemporary and totally new.
Finding New Experimental Art - developing new art from old sketches,
paintings, ideas and thumbnails.
Making Digital Art And Its Applications - this illustrates the many creative
uses of the computer in the development and creation of artists projects
of all kinds.
Thumbnail Sketches - a study of a sketchbook and the two thumbnail
sketches behind several of the pieces in this exhibition and their importance
in the development of art.
________________________________________________________________

2. Development of
“Fall Migration”
“ Fall Migration” Pastel painting over watercolor on Wallis sanded paper.
Development of“The Pear Images.”
The‘colored paper collage‘with pear’in this exhibition was created years ago as a
magazine cover for the Boston Computer Society. Periodically I would re-discover
and get inspired by its image but only recently decided to develop it further
and re-drew it in my iMac as a digital image.
This allowed me to change the colors, try new backgrounds and have fun creating
new options as the original was already a successful design. My goal was to create
a dynamite, moody, off-beat pastel that could compete in national juried exhibitions.
To meet this goal, I had to be bold and change the overall color scheme and create
a more interesting background. What resulted was a reversal* of all the colors which
gave it a totally new and exciting look. When satisfied, I made a tracing from a digital
print of the new design and transferred it to Wallis Sanded paper.
A light watercolor underpainting of the whole image and background was then
made which provided a‘new look’and some exciting unplanned options for this
design which I took advantage of when applying the pastels. The background in
particular gave it a nice‘spacey’look which white pastel helped to enhance.
The painting took time but progressed smoothly as it was interesting evolving
the two backgrounds in harmony with the prime elements. I enjoy the playfulness
displayed which suggests doing a 3D version, and further animated paintings with
different combos of subject matter.
Lastly, the name!! It’s a rather fun problem, to name a playful piece of art. After
several back and forths,“Fall Migration”was christened. Enjoy.
_______________
* Reversal is the negative version of a color. Orange becomes blue, red becomes
green and yellow becomes purple. They convert into the secondary colors.

3. Finding New Experimental Art
Comp @ Highfield
Framed Pic @ Highfield
“ Boogie Woogie” Pastel painting
over watercolor on Wallis sanded
paper.
“ FantaSea” Pastel painting on
Wallis sanded paper.
“ Navajo Dream” Pastel painting
on Wallis sanded paper.
“Magical Dream 2” Watercolor
painting on Arches watercolor
paper.
“Magical Dreams” Pastel painting
over watercolor underpainting
on Wallis Sanded pastel paper.
“Boogie Woogie” digital design
and color guide for painting.
Where do new visual ideas come from?
If artists are curious“Art Makers”interested in doing creative work, they are
always on the look out for interesting elements that stimulate this interest.
Simultaniously, ‘artistic playtime’often includes seeking new and exciting
combinations that make good art. The framed digital art samples shown
here illustrate this point.
An important area that shouldn‘t be ignored is searching through old
sketch books, drawings, notes for visual ideas that were not developed at
the time, but might be a goldmine now.
As artists, our skills and talents are always developing and it’s possible
that we were not ready to develop some of these old sketches, but may
be perfect to do so now. That’s what happened with the two thumbnails
shown here in my sketchbook. I was tired of what I was doing and wanted
to go beyond abstract painting and start doing something playful.
So here they are out of the sketchbook and on to the gallery wall. This is
their first public exposure and they are curious about their reception.
I have a variety of older images all ready to be developed and brought
into the 21st century. I’m looking forward to working on them as they are
very upbeat, colorful and playful images ready to fly. Wish me luck!!

4. Digital Art As An Application For Design & Art
This exhibition of“Art Making”includes several pieces of digital art that serve
different functions. One is the design and color development of new ideas &
designs shown as framed digital prints, and the second aids in the development
of fine art projects shown as layouts. In both cases, a computer using the same
program like Adobe Illustrator was used.
There are many ways to create these digital images which include scanning
thumbnail sketches, original drawings and photos, then re-drawing and
developing the scanned images in the computer. Or you can complete the whole
process from start to finish within the illustration app in your computer. All of the
digital art samples shown here are a combination of the two processes just mentioned.
All kinds of design and art work can be done within the computer such as
medical & scientific illustration, photo manipulation, graphic design and fine art.
It’s just a great way to expand your creative vision.
Making Digital Art and Its Applications
Thumbnail Sketches
Developing Art from Thumbnail Sketches
Thumbnail sketches can be doodles or a stress free form of play
which often has surprising results. The images shown here are a
good examples of this and a great way to invent new shapes for
you to turn into interesting, playful designs and paintings.
This exhibition provides good examples of this.
Another form of thumbnails often used by landscape and still life
painters, are simplified sketches of various scenes or set-ups that are
developed in several small sketch stages that try to solve various
problems before beginning a painting.
However used thumbnails simplify the image, stress the major
elements and encourage the artist to solve the structural aspects,