Chasing arctic light

December 22, 2013 1:39 PM

Zaria Forman uses oil pastels to draw amazing ice and water from places like Greenland, the Maldives, Israel and Svarlbard.
posted by klangklangston (6 comments total)

Whoa. That's a pretty extraordinary technique. Interesting to compare them to the work of Vija Celmins. Like Celmins, she manages to suggest a kind of "photorealistic" fidelity to the object, and yet it's clearly not actually water or ice or cloud as we experience it in any ordinary sense.
posted by yoink at 1:54 PM on December 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

This shot of the artist at work was making some social media rounds today. Amazing!
posted by Erasmouse at 2:07 PM on December 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's an interesting shot of her working, showing her filling it in top to bottom. I don't know if there's underdrawing that's invisible from that angle, but clearly she's not a "work all over" artist.
posted by fatbird at 3:40 PM on December 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wow.
posted by rtha at 3:55 PM on December 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's an interesting shot of her working

There's a decent chance she's using a projector. Certainly it's not necessary, but it can speed things along a lot and working from top to bottom with no foreshadowing is bad practice if you're free-handing.
posted by tychotesla at 4:43 PM on December 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, though in the working photo you can see the light she's got on; she could have turned the projector off, but she's not using one at that moment. She could also be sketching it first in light graphite or even non-photo blue.

I mean, if we're curious, we could always email her. Her site includes contact info.
posted by klangklangston at 9:41 PM on December 23, 2013