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Anita Cook Pastels & Linoleum Carvings |
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Artist’s Statement |
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Creating artwork has always been relaxing and at the same time an exciting activity for me. My favorite subjects to paint are the places I know and love. The Pacific Northwest offers endless vistas of natural beauty. The coast, western foothills, mountains, and the desert of Oregon offer an always changing environment that provides the perfect landscape subject. Oregon’s lush gardens offer a large variety of flowers and leaves to draw. My paintings reflect my emotional and spiritual response to my natural surroundings.
I create my art because I have a passion for it and the natural beauty around me. I feel so fortunate to be able to translate this joy in art into a career. Thank you to all my family, friends, and patrons who have encouraged me and helped to make this happen! |
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Linoleum Carvings |
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Pastels |
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Pastel painting is enjoying a renaissance in artistic and public popularity after a long period of neglect. Today works in pastel command some of the highest prices for contemporary art. Considered one of the purest of painting mediums, pastel is as colorful and vigorous as any method of painting.
The challenge and appeal of pastel lie in its pure vibrant colors, diverse texture, and enduring freshness and immediacy. Pastels are not chalk. They are pure pigment, the same used in making all fine art paints. It is the most permanent of all mediums when applied to conservation grounds and properly framed. Pastel has no liquid binder that may fade, yellow, crack, or blister with time or exposure to light, (as with other mediums).
Pastel artworks are created by stroking sticks of dry pigment across an abrasive ground designed for pastel, imbedding color in the “tooth” of the ground. If the ground is completely covered with pigment in a painterly fashion, as my work is, the work is considered a pastel painting; leaving much of the ground exposed produces a pastel drawing.
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Carving a design into blocks of wood or linoleum has historically been used as a step toward the printing of the design. A carving is made, inked, and pressed into paper or other surfaces to transfer an image of the design.
I use the medium quite differently. The carvings start simply. I draw only the lines essential to defining my subject. Then I paint, using the vibrant colors I see in nature. Finally, I carve the lines and pare away the background to recreate natural patterns. |
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Artist’s Statement |
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