KRYSTAL W. BROWN
TAKING
THE
VIEWER
THERE
Through strong drawing, choice use of color, and skillful manipulation of depth, this Texas oil painter takes the viewer on a journey through her compositions.
——— BY BOB BAHR ———
Depicting a road or path snaking into the background, or even just emphasizing diagonals that guide the eye, can create a sense of depth
in a painting. But there are more sophisticated and challenging ways to show distance, some
of which mimic the way the human eye works. Consider the painting Honey House by Krystal W. Brown. Someone at the scene would naturally find his or her eyes settling on the sunlit house
referenced in the title, but capturing the effect in a painting would present a challenge to the artist. The stark contrast of the sunlit white doorway with the adjacent dark shadow areas would make that area want to come forward in the picture plane, flattening the depth.
But Brown was not deterred, and she solved the problem beautifully. The figures on the fence line in the foreground are undefined and muted in grays. The background is slightly gauzy, with less
saturated color, leaving the house as the clear focal point without com- pressing the depth in the scene. Her skill at achieving this effect is even more striking when one considers that landscape was not her primary genre for the first part of her career.
Born and raised in Northern Wyoming, KRYSTAL W. BROWN now calls
the Houston area home. Painting on location, she remains faithful to the scene before her while bringing a loose expressionistic approach to her work.krystalbrownfineart.com
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While You Wait
2020, oil, 12 x 16 in. Available from Marta Stafford Fine Art, Marble Falls, TX Plein air
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(ABOVE) Love’s Labor
2017, oil, 12 x 12 in. Available from artist Plein air
(LEFT) Honey House
2020, oil, 11 x 11 in.
Available from Marta Stafford Fine Art, Marble Falls, TX
Plein air
(BELOW) Voices Carry
2020, oil, 12 x 24 in. Private collection Plein air
Iceberg Lake
(TOP LEFT) Always Welcome, 2020, oi2l,01220x, o1i6l, 9inx., 1a2vainil.a- blefromartist,pleinair•(ABOVE)CAhvaanielalbVleiefwro,m20a2r0ti,sotil, 12 x 16 in., available from artist, plein air • (LEFT)PRleitnreaiart, 2020, oil, 16 x 12 in. , available from artist, plein air
EARLY INFLUENCES
Although Brown enjoyed success as a portrait painter, these days most of her work uses the technical chops earned in that genre to paint the countryside, mostly en plein air. “I’m an outside girl,” she says. “I describe plein air as my muse. It’s what keeps me going.” Her outdoor work shows a surety born of experience and enthusiasm. “I have come into this confident voice and power recently,” she says. “Before, I was hiding my voice doing portraiture and com- missions; you don’t have to put yourself into a portrait. To change from that was a challenge, but to honor who I am and what I think has transformed my paintings. When you put yourself into your work, you have skin in the game. If you prevent yourself from being fully committed to your vision, then you are limiting yourself. Now I don’t paint for sales, or for others. I don’t paint for any reason other than that I want to paint something. When I honor myself and my voice, that painting is scooped up and appreciated.”
One of Brown’s earliest guiding lights was Dan Gerhartz, whom she admired for his acute ability to
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Bay Side Ride
2020, oil, 16 x 12 in. Available from artist Plein air
incorporate the figure in the landscape. Similarly, she appreciates Jeremy Lipking. “Coming from the portrait genre, I absolutely love Norman Rockwell and Mary Cassatt,” Brown says. “And I admire living masters like Dan who are success- fully able to capture the figure in the landscape and not even skip a beat in doing so. When I was a young mother, I bought Dan’s video Not Far from Home, and as I worked on my commissions and paintings, I would have his video playing in the background. My joke was ‘I’m painting with my buddy Dan!” I incorporated his palette in my work and started adopting things he would do and say. Things stuck with me from Dan that I
still share with my students. I especially like his view on the world and life, and I think he com- municates that beautifully through his work. He and Rob Liberace are both in my paintings, as are others. Sometimes I make a mark and think ‘that was a [Alison] Menke or a [Suzie] Baker.’ I like the influences that have an effect on me and I think it’s cool to celebrate it.”
SECRET WEAPON
Growing up, Brown and her family spent week- ends every year on the water she painted in Voices Carry. “The topography of the country up there in Northern Wyoming is just incredible,” says the
artist. “This piece was painted within a couple of passes. I felt a connection with the land, and mem- ory just flooded over me. The locals who know that area will recognize that I left out the boat dock, but I wanted the viewer to feel the vastness of the space and concentrate on that. I like to allow people a place in the environment so they can stand where I stood and see what I saw.
“That’s why I do what I do. I want you to go down that channel into the causeway. I want to take you there. I paint for me, for the therapeutic aspect, and I do it for the joy of the process. I find that if I concentrate on one little piece of the world for three hours, amazing things happen. But the
ARTIST’S TOOLKIT
Palette: From bottom left, Permalba white, tita- nium white, cadmium yellow pale, Indian yellow, Equity orange, yellow ochre, cadmium orange, brilliant pink, cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson, magenta, dioxazine violet, ultramarine blue, transparent oxide brown, cobalt blue, King’s blue, neutral gray N5, viridian, sap green, and phthalo green lake
Surface: Oil-primed Belgian linen
Brushes: Flats and filberts
Misc: Q-tips, a bowl scraper, and a ceramic tool for scratching into the paint
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Seeking Solace
2020, oil, 12 x 9 in. Available from artist Plein air
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A Thousand Feet Below
2020, oil, 24 x 12 in. Private collection Plein air
end product is for somebody else. To have someone stand in my shoes is my gift to the viewer, because not everyone will see what I see and be where I have been. I always know right away where I want to take the viewer. I am very conscious of that. The mode of paint application supports that vision and journey.”
Brown has an important skill that enables her to make these scenes convincing, even when she is tackling a complicated composition: drawing. She says figure classes in college prepared her for a painting career built on a strong foundation of drawing skills, and the encouragement of subsequent mentors reinforced her interest and dedication to it. Good draftsman-
ship ensures that her paintings read well and easily. Brown takes it further, emphasizing certain lines by scratching through the applied paint to create a highlight and a hard edge. Her use of scratching can be seen clearly in While You Wait, particularly in the crossing lights. In Chanel View, the scratches in the trees and foreground clearly finish the painting.
“I use a ceramic tool to scrape into the panel,” Brown says. “I also have some brushes that I never use the bristles on, just the other end. Rob Liberace inspired me to start paintings with a grisaille, but he also encour- aged my drawing. ‘You are a drawer,’ he said, solidifying it for me. Making those marks is me finding my way, going back to my strength — drawing, and relying on that. Those marks are also a way to communicate the mes- sage that this is a cool thing you’re looking at. Those little scratches are me defining the shapes; they provide a road map for me. I’m a bit of a slower painter, and they’re a way to put guideposts in the marks so I know where I’m going. They’re also great in the foreground for grass, power lines, or anything I want to draw attention to, as the hard edges draw the eye. I also use Q-tips to make similar but softer marks, which let the luminosity of the panel show through. I put paint on so I can take paint off.”
Her grisaille is based on transparent oxide brown with a little bit of cobalt blue to cool and darken, a mixture she calls “the Dark Krystal.” She charges right into the painting and draws her composition in the grisaille stage, working with thinned paint. Brown moves from background to foreground when building the composition. “If the foreground is dark in shadow, I just let the grisaille color fall down the panel,” she says.
Although Brown doesn’t shrink from vibrant color, she uses it strategi- cally. “Value trumps color in every situation,” she confirms. “A pleasing value range in my grisaille allows me to add little notes of color. The Wizard of Oz started in black and white for a reason — it went to color to create a feeling of magic. Color comes after value because I am a drawer. And I use it very specifically — in the focal point. Color communicates strongly, and if I don’t have time to put a lot of it in the painting, then it will primarily be in the focal point.”
PALETTE PARTICULARS
So, what’s on her palette? “I used Dan Gerhartz’s palette for about 15 years, and now I am adding to it,” says Brown. “Each person we learn from, we take what they give us and we make it our own. That initial palette has grown and evolved, but I carry forward a few things from his instruction in all of my paintings. I know how the colors on my palette will stain, especially in sunrise and sunset paintings. I like oil-primed linen on panel. Sometimes the main color in the sky above a tree line is raw linen showing
Chapel on the Rocks, 2020, oil, 16 x 16 in., private collection, plein air • When Sky and Earth Meet, 2019, oil, 24 x 12 in., private collection, plein air and studio
— I know what to put there and pull back off to create that glow. If something isn’t working, I ask what isn’t there. If red isn’t working, maybe some- thing’s going on with my greens.”
Specifically, Brown squirts out cadmium yellow pale, Indian yellow (“creates a beautiful, transparent stain, and mixes and plays really well with other colors”), yellow ochre, Equity orange (from Gamblin), cadmium orange, brilliant pink, cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson, dioxazine violet (“another beautiful staining color”), ultra- marine blue, transparent oxide brown, cobalt blue, King’s blue (“mixes great with brilliant pink for shadow passages and also to bring the foreground forward in plein air pieces”), viridian, phthalo green lake, sap green, and a neutral gray (“either
a mud mixed myself or a tube gray”). She likes three whites: titanium, Cremnitz, and Permalba, using each depending on what she wants in terms of tinting strength and consistency. She favors Michael Harding brand oil paint.
SENSE OF INTRIGUE
Like a good filmmaker, Brown places her empha- sis not on the medium, but rather the narrative. “I set the scene and tell you what it did for me,
and you finish the story,” the artist says. “Every- thing isn’t communicated. I always want to take the viewer into the distance, start them on the path, and then let them go where they will. They see places in the painting where they want to go. The painting doesn’t always take them all the way, but they can imagine it. That’s why we con- nect with art. I believe people are smart and they need an opportunity to find themselves in things. I appreciate photorealism, but those aren’t the pieces I’m drawn to because I want to find things on my own in a painting. I don’t want to be given all the information. As a viewer, I should want to stay in the scene and explore it and figure it out and be a part of it. It’s not mystery; it’s intrigue. It’s more intriguing for me if passages are suggestive, even if still recognizable.”
Sometimes the experience she wants to convey is quite visceral, as in A Thousand Feet Below, which she painted on the verge of a canyon. “When I looked over the edge, my stomach got queasy and panicky,” Brown recalls. “I literally chose a setup so the viewer looks down and hope- fully feels that tickle in the stomach. It’s wonderful. It’s the juice, the bliss, the euphoria, the flow. I think if I can express a little bit of that in my work,
it will help people.” More often, though, her view of the world is less extreme.
“I love this world,” Brown says. “I love eve- rything about it. I am generally a positive person, and I really have a love for this life. I have always painted plein air and through it I have fallen in love with the environment. This summer I went to Wyoming and created my own plein air event. I painted five days from sunup to sundown. It was just for me.”
Brown goes on, “What’s important and what’s not is different for everyone, but in general, art
is essential. Art, music, and literature are what is treasured and stolen and passed down for genera- tions. Creators don’t seem to be valued until they are not creating anymore. You have to get out and do it though, because somebody is waiting for what you will bring to the world. It does something for us creatives when we create, and something for others when they see the work. The world needs what we do. We are essential, and I hope people recognize this and believe it.”
BOB BAHR has been writing and editing articles about art instruction for more than 14 years.
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