art styles – The Art of Shelli Fitzpatrick

The story of my artwork

I don’t make moments, I make them better.

A pack of white wolves stand guard over the overgrown ruins of a castle. Art print by artist Shelli Fitzpatrick. — The castle guard is an artwork by Shelli Fitzpatrick and prints are available at shellifitzpatick.com

That may sound like an arrogant statement and I really don’t mean it that way, so please bear with me while I explain.

One of the characteristics of my work is that I very often create scenes that never actually happened in reality. Because I specialize in photo manipulation, I often take scenes from more than one image and meld them together to create something that only ever existed in my imagination and now in a particular artwork such as this one titled “The castle guard”.

Yes the castle was real and so were the wolves but they were never really in this same setting that I created in this image. And I don’t mean to sound arrogant at all when I tell you that I much prefer the scene I created to the photos of reality that I used to create this work from. So please forgive me if that is how I come off to you.

What I do is scour sites that offer free to use images with a CC0 license or that are definitely public domain trying to find art worthy images to use to create one of my works with. Then I take these images into my software, cut out what I need and put the parts together into the scene I have imagined. I then apply extra editing to add an artistic touch such as impressionist style or watercolor or whatever effect I am looking for.

My go to software is not AI as some of you might think, but rather I mainly use GIMP and Art Rage. Occasionally I will use Watercolor Studio or Ink Scape and even more rarely I use Krita.

This kind of work is not the only kind I create. There are times when I use my own photographs as content or I just free hand create minimalist paintings, but that is a subject for another post.

I am very grateful to the photographers who donate their images to CC0 licensing sites like Pixabay and to the art museums that have released so many works to open access collections so that artists like me are able to source great images to use when making artwork without worrying about copyright issues.

I do try to donate to the original photographer or museums when it is possible for me and especially if an artwork that I used their content to create has sold. But I do it anonymously for obvious reasons.

I hope you have enjoyed this behind the scenes look into my creative processes and if you love this artwork or would like to see more of my work, please visit my official artist website at www.shellifitzpatrick.com

Where some of my abstract ideas come from.

four abstract artworks depicting turbulence — See my entire collection of abstract artwork here

I was just looking at some of my abstract artworks and I noticed that many of them have a wavy turbulent sea theme. That got me thinking about why I create so many pieces that have a tossed and unsettled stormy vibe.

Okay, right here I could get deep and spiritual and say it is a reflection of my inner feelings brought on by the instability of my surroundings in the world, but that doesn’t explain the pieces I created long ago when things were relatively peaceful in my life. I could also say it was a subconcious inner longing for the sea, but that is far from the truth since I am from Colorado and the beaches I grew up with were the rocky shores of cold mountain lakes.

Then I rememebered a time in my past when I was working as a laundry mat attendant and we had those huge triple loader washing machines that have a round window in the front and you can see the colorful clothing being tossed about in the soapy sudsy water. I recall wishing I could capture those kind of scenes with a camera or paints, and all of a sudden, now I know why I tend to create those kind of abstracts over and over again. It is my way of trying to recreate those images from my memory. Not very romantic, I know, but it was kind of surprising to realize it while I was musing.

On Beating the Art Blahs

At the moment winter is setting in where I live. The leaves are drying up and blowing away, the garden is frozen and dead. It is cold inside and out and inspiration seems to have gone with the leaves. As I sit here bundled up in front of my blank computer screen trying to drum up some inspiration to create more artwork, all I can think about is how cold my toes are and how blank my mind is.

So where do we find inspiration on the bleak blah days like this? Sometimes I like to visit online art museums and libraries to look for old vintage art. That never fails to get my creative juices flowing.

Also, and I hope it won’t sound crazy, but sometimes I just go back over my own artwork because most of the time when I am creating a piece of artwork, I have more than one idea going on in my head. Since I can only follow one path at a time, when I go back and revist some of my older work it jogs my memory of the path not taken and I can sometimes explore that avenue as well.

Examples of this kind of thing can be seen in my portfolio where there is more than one style of art made with the same image. Below is an example of two different styles of art I created using one of my floral photographs as a starting point. I hope this post helps you find new ways of getting inspired when you are feeling empty and blank by reviewing your own artwork and revamping it into totally new pieces of art that might reach a new audience you wouldn’t have appealed to before.

Wild Wildflowers Colorful Botanical Art by Shelli Fitzpatrick — Get prints of this art here

Comicbook Wildflowers Botanical Art by Shelli Fitzpatrick — Get prints of this art here

A passion for the past

I am a lover of history and nostalgia and much of my work reflects that love. This is a piece I created of a village that has a definite historic flavor and I tried to make it feel like an impressionist style even though my tools are entirely digital. I am always striving to make digital art that doesn’t look digital.
I’ve included the description I wrote to go with this image on the day I posted it to my website because I was feeling the role of a storyteller that day and I hope you enjoy reading it.

It goes like this…

“An impressionist style view of a medieval village as seen from a hill overlooking the town center. There is a tall spire on the cathedral dominating the other smaller houses and buildings with their charming red rooftops. The community sprawls out over the rolling green fields and hills to a range of mountains in the distance.

In your imagination zoom into the center of the bustling main street and hear the sounds of hawkers trying to lure you to buy their goods and carriage wheels clattering on the cobblestone pavement. Smell the aromas of flowers and street vendors cooking meat on spits and bread baking and fresh horse manure from the horse drawn buggies and coaches.

Feel the excitement of a day at the town market in the late afternoon as things wind up for the last of daylight, everyone preparing to close up shop and go home. A quick look at the cloudy sky seems to warn of coming showers. Time to find a bed for the night…”

Autumn is a Lady

Autumn is a Lady is a modern contemporary abstract piece I recently created and when I was finished the title jumped out at me. I remember thinking what a great book cover it would make and how if I were a writer, I would write a novel of the same name just so I could put this art on the cover.

It is available for purchase in many print formats at my website.

#BuyIntoArt

Black Eyed Susan

Her name is Rudbeckia but you can call her black eyed susan. She is wild and free and loves to snuggle up with an Indian blanket on the side of a hill or in a meadow. She has long golden petals and beautiful brown lashes and though she resembles her cousin the sunflower, she likes to think she is more fun. You can become quite attached to her and love her all summer long but don’t cry when she goes away for the winter. She promises to return next spring.

She allowed me to capture her in this pretty abstract artwork so that you could have something to remember her by. Click HERE to get your botanical print of the beautiful wildflower named Black Eyed Susan.

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Abstract Art Obsession

Obsessed with Abstracts

A quick browse thru my artist website will reveal to you that I have an obsession with digital abstract art. I love to look at it and especially to create it.

There is such a freedom in just letting the work lead you. When you start out just playing around with color, shapes, brushes and effects and then when you reach that moment when an artwork starts to gel and you suddenly know what it is supposed to look like so now you take the lead and add the finishing touches.

Each piece turns into an adventure and the creation of each piece is exciting and fresh. It may sound vain for me to say this but when I look back again at certain artworks I have made I get that same excitement all over again.

One thing I really love about abstract work is that each piece is truly unique and while the style can be copied, they cannot be exactly duplicated. How do I know? Because I have tried to make the same thing twice and even I can’t do it with my own art. That is why I don’t mind posting my abstract art for sale online and letting it inspire others.

View more of my work at my artist website

Fractal Watercolor Fusion Art

What is it?

It’s a new style of art I am exploring by fusing my fractals with silhouette shapes and watercolor backgrounds to form unique artwork that is colorful decorative and exciting. A new kind of abstract realism and a way to take fractals to the next level in artistry. I invite you to come browse my growing collection of modern fractal watercolor fusion art and see what is new.
#FreshArtforSpring

Abstract Realism

There was a question recently posed in an artists forum discussion. “Abstract or Realism?” and my gut response was, both! So I started to explore if there was such a thing as abstract realism, because I really feel like we shouldn’t have to choose one or the other.

As it turns out Abstract realism is an art style that has been around for centuries but only began to be recognized around the 1950’s and 60’s. It has however recently gained a lot of popularity with today’s artists and art lovers. It is a fusion of abstract techniques and realism that lends itself to the digital medium quite well and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I have even created some abstract realism pieces myself without even realizing that was what I was doing. But I think it adds an element of interest, excitement and individuality to a piece to have both abstract and realistic elements blended together.

So if someone asks you; “abstract or realism?” just say both!