Art Style, Before the Rains daily painting by Everglades artist JoAnn Sanborn

Before the Rains
14" x 11"

acrylic on canvas
Sold

Today's Everglades painting, Before the Rains, is a little larger than I've been doing for the dailys. We've been getting quite a bit of rain this week, and the moisture softens the landscape even when it's not raining.

If you've seen much of my work at all, you know that it's usually pretty easy to tell, even from a distance, that I'm the artist. It may be in the distinctive use of color, or the way the space is defined on the canvas, or the way I layer the paint.

This isn't something that I try to do, it can't be forced, any more than the ease with which you write your own name. It's your signature, and no one else can do it quite the same way.That's what makes one artist different from another. We're interpreting what we see in our own way.

Some artists don't interpret. Their goal is to get an exact a replication as is possible. Their work is called photo realism. Some artists interpret the subject to complete abstraction. Collectors usually gravitate to one style or the other, and don't appreciate works that go too far off their ideal.

I"m trying to define my art, and having some problems. I know for sure that I'm a landscape painter, since that's my inspiration and my muse. But beyond that, what category does my art fall into?


My work is realism, to the extent that you can identify the subject but doesn't meet the definition of realism because in realism there's no interpretation. It has touches of post-impressionism in the way I see blocks of light, and the post impressionists are certainly a group I identify with and have learned from. My work also shows an appreciation for the luminists, another group I respect and hold dear. Some of my artwork has been called expressionist, but I seems to be lacking in the angst necessary to be an expressionist. Although I love color I'm not completely either a colorist, or a tonalist.

Do you have a particular style of art that you like above others, or a particular artists whose work you identify closely with?