Reading by Aladdin Lamp

[Alexandra Tyng]

Oil on Linen, 20" x 30"

This is another recent interior with two figures. I created this composition from several old photos of my husband and brother as they looked about 25 years ago! At the time I thought they would make a good painting somehow, but I couldn't figure out how to put them together and I didn't have much skill with filling out the missing color and value information in photos, so I kept them in the family albums. This time, the lamp is the focal point. As with the other digital image, I'm disappointed in the overly high contrast and the lack of color in the light areas. In reality the lamp has some interesting variation in paint texture and color, and so do the faces in the light. Maybe I should try to get my slides scanned. But in the meantime, I thought I would share this with you just so you can see I have not been goofing off.

[Ngaire Winwood]

Alexandra, I just love the atmosphere you are capturing with these new works of yours, great stuff!

[Alexandra Tyng]

Ngaire, thank you! It's very encouraging to know that you like the feeling of atmosphere. I've been experimenting with different lighting conditions and enjoying it very much.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Alex, this is lovely! Your paintwork is really fresh and lively, and consistent throughout the whole painting. Very fresh and appealing, and such a good composition, especially since you put it together from different photographs. I really like the still-life composition on the table and the interest of the book whose corner is hanging over the edge of the table (for me that is the focal point). It makes an interesting idea where the figures are not the centre of the painting, but framing the still-life, which seems to be what the painting's interest is. Perhaps I am overstepping the my boundaries, but in a similar painting you could even make the figures less substantial - just suggestions of figures.

You have such good tones on the walls, and very good feeling of flickering light.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thanks so much, Thomasin! It was an interesting challenge to use the figures to frame the still life, as you said. I guess I could have marginalized the figures even more. I'm working on these problems with every canvas, and I am feeling that it is a long, gradual process to understand what one is doing and to actually have the control to do it. It is both intuitive and intellectual, and they have to work together. I think if I had tried to paint this years ago it would have looked ridiculous. (The figures would have overbalanced the center to a shocking degree.)

Thanks for noticing the magazine drooping over the edge of the table! We're thinking alike because that was (like the map in the other painting) something I especially enjoyed painting.

[Carlos Ygoa]

Such a treat...2 figurative paintings from you to look at!
You are successful here in capturing mood and atmosphere as well as the obvious technical mastery in all the details (drooping magazine edge included)--can I add that the hand right next to that magazine edge is also exquisite?! Very nice work!

[Alexandra Tyng]

Carlos,

Thanks so much! Perhaps I went out on a limb trying to create a painting in which the figures are not central, but you are very generous in your comments. Working on these (relatively) small paintings reminded me how accurate one has to be in the details, even when the details are just suggested. There really isn't much to that hand, for instance, but it has to be painted just right or else it will not read right, as you know. I think, after painting these, that changing scale every once in a while is a good mental/intuitive exercise.

[Tom Edgerton]

Alex--

Both paintings are just lovely....the balance and compositional control exhibit your usual flair. You have the ability to make very complicated and detailed scenes immediately readable and simple--they are masterpieces of editing. And their spatial believability results from a rock-solid tonal control.

Beautiful!

[David Draime]

Alex,

I usually don't like candle-lit (or, in this case, lamp-lit) paintings - I suspect because they are really difficult to pull off - but I gotta say, this one stopped me in my tracks. It is such a convincing scene you have created. I keep coming back to see this one. I think it has to do with your uncanny ability to create a certain atmosphere, and be perfectly consistent with it - every element in the painting supports that beautifully. It is so believable, I just want to linger, maybe pull up a chair myself and start reading. Just lovely.

David

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Alex, what a complex and ambitious work !
Something I find beautiful about it is the narrow range of colours you have used. Not only the painting is almost monochromatic apart from the reds and green, but there is also quite a narrow range of tones.
Taking out the lamp, the greys of the room are very close to one another, and this feels very real: it happens to me sometimes in facing a subject that I panic thinking, gosh this is just all the same colour, how am I going to paint it ?
Well, you have achieved variety with the brushwork and different thickness of the paint, something I really should remember for the future.

Ilaria