The Spark
The Center of Attention
By Sarah Blumenschein
A
summer visit to Pike’s Place in Seattle provided
abundant options for still life subjects, especially
in the fl oral department. Photos I took on that
day have become the inspiration for a series of paintings.
I initially started with a small-sized format, but I plan to
move to a larger format for some work in the series once
I’ve resolved the compositions. In the painting, Dahlias $2,
I wanted the pink-and-white dahlias to be the focal point,
so I modifi ed the scene slightly to keep the viewer’s eye
moving back to the white buckets featuring these fl ow-
ers. Most notably, I cropped the photo and rearranged the
sunfl owers in the lower-right corner, moving them up the
right side of the painting. I also modifi ed the background,
leaving the imagery more vague. PJAward-winning artist Sarah Blumenschein (sarahblumenschein.com),
lives in Albuquerque, N.M., with her husband and four children.Once I’d decided to make the pink-and-white dahlias
the central idea in my painting, Dahlias $2 (12x16),
I diverged from the reference photo as needed, crop-
ping and rearranging elements in ways that would
bring more attention to these fl owers as the central
focus of my composition.72 Pastel Journal JUNE 2019