COMPOSING A SPORTS ACTION PAINTING
Hanne Lore Koehler:
"My love for action and fascination with capturing a flash of movement in this motionless art form should be evident in my sports paintings. Only the experience itself can compare with the delight I feel when I have captured an athlete in the excitement of the moment, in anticipation of the next fast ball, goal or break away. Every athlete, professional or amateur, can identify with the adrenaline rush felt in that instant portrayed in each of my action paintings. This work for me is revitalizing, refreshing, uninhibited."
Step 1:
When composing a sports action painting, I usually work from a number of photos of the same action from different angles and under different lighting conditions. Very seldom, is just one photo perfect enough to be the sole model for the painting. I usually combine my favorite elements from different photos to create the effect that I'm looking for - the expression on the athlete's face from one photo, the muscle action from another, the lighting from a third. My planning stage often takes as long as completing the entire painting. Photoshop sometimes comes in very handy for this process where I can combine photographic elements easily to see if I like the effect. When I am satisfied with this preliminary layout, I go on to the next phase.
Step 2:
Before I begin to paint, I complete a detailed drawing of the subject on my canvas using my preliminary layout as the model as if the athlete were posing in my studio, frozen in time. Facial expressions, muscle action, pose must be right in order to make the action look believable. When painting in watercolor, this is particularly important to my style since I do not use white paint. True to traditional watercolor techniques, the whites in my compositions are created by the white paper background; so, in order to leave the paper white in the right locations, a detailed drawing on the paper canvas is essential.
Step 3:
I begin by painting the detailed subject, concentrating on facial expressions, lighting, muscle action, fluidity of movement, combining these elements so that the composition of the sports action painting looks natural and not contrived.
Step 4:
The backgrounds of my team sports action paintings are impressionistic. I concentrate on creating a balance in the painting - light and dark, warm and cool colors, rough and smooth texture, near and far spaces, high and low chroma, soft and hard edges, realistic focal point and impressionistic background, etc. These Yin and Yang elements create the tension in the painting, the impression of movement, the excitement."
Written and painted by Hanne Lore Koehler, owner of Koehler Art Studio Gallery. You can find her on Google, Facebook and Twitter. Hanne is an artist who has painted many watercolors, oil paintings and murals of landscapes, portraits, still life, architectural and sports art. She is also an author and illustrator of children's books.
See also:
Winter Sports Art
Summer Sports Art
Kids Sports Art | Action Paintings of Children
Sports Art Wall Murals
The Team Action Sports art in this gallery features hand-painted original watercolor, oil on canvas or acrylic paintings by contemporary sports artist, Hanne Lore Koehler. The team action sports art includes original paintings, sports art prints, sports art posters, sports collectibles, sports art cards, canvas prints and murals. Choose from baseball action paintings, sports celebrity portraits, sports star portraits, Olympic hockey team prints, action paintings, baseball paintings, soccer prints, football art prints, basketball art, kids little league paintings, team sports action paintings, kids sports art prints, action sports art, team sports prints, extreme sports art prints, extreme sports art posters, kids wall art sports, sport prints, sports celebrity prints, baseball art prints, hockey prints, hockey art prints, football prints, football art prints, sports art for kids, kids sports prints, team sport action paintings, action sports art prints, Olympic team action hockey prints, baseball art prints, soccer poster prints, football paintings, basketball art, synchronized swim team prints, pairs skating team painting and more.
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