Two Silhouettes

I took a couple of days off to celebrate my birthday (something I highly recommend) with my family, but at the end of the week last week, instead of the usual little Daily Paintings I became fascinated with silhouettes. Now, I couldn't have told you that's what I was thinking of, I was thinking 'shapes' against a background. The top image was from a photo I took from a hotel room last year looking down in the early a.m. with filtered light - no shadows - of an intersection and a lone pedestrian crossing. The dark shape of the man, with the grid and cross patterns behind him was something I really liked. I could definitely do more with this, but I just liked doing it to this point. The bottom photo is of a family at the beach last year, and they were back lit. When I was done what I really liked was the water, surprisingly!

On my actual birthday (Saturday) my husband does this thing where I get to decide everything about the day*, and one of the things we ended up doing was going for a long walk in Bristol, RI. We noticed the Bristol Art Museum had a show of Thomas Sgouros' work, and we went in. I couldn't stop saying "WOW." On my Studio Blog I've posted some images of his, as well as another study I did of a mother and babe at the beach.

*One of the other things I decided we'd do is see Slumdog Millionaire, which I had to watch with my hands over my face - I don't 'do' torture! Fair warning about that movie!