ARTIST: Marianna McDonald

from Kentucky Homes & Gardens Magazine Summer/Fall 2020

by Kentucky Homes & Gardens

Inspiration in Balance

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10 A basic white closet system can easily become a traditional, sophisticated dressing space, with the addition of crown and base highlighting the arched doors. Photo courtesy of Closets by Design.

11 The scale of this made-to-order stained and painted wood closet is quite stunning, Beyond what you can see here, the closet space also contains a washer and dryer, a wet bar with mini-fridge and a built-in vanity. Photo courtesy of Closet Factory.

11 A A RTIST

1 with the Color Interpreting Heart

By Heather N. Russell-Simmons Photography Courtesy of Marianna McDonald

As a child growing up in Louisville, Ky., artist Marianna In her classes, McDonald demonstrates how to break compoMcDonald was no stranger to the local hobby store. “I sition into two shapes; dark and light. Indigo blue can be used loved the paint by number kits I got there,” she said. At to block in the dark shapes. Orange can be used to block in 13, McDonald’s mother encouraged her to pursue that devotion. light shapes. “She told me to go to the hobby store and pick out something that would take me a long time to complete so I’d leave my little Although oils and pastels are made from the same type of pigbrother alone,” McDonald recalled with a laugh. “The store owner ment, oils are mixed together while pastels are layered. McDonald knew me, and he set me up with my first real oil painting set and a teaches her students that pastels are like a small piece of colored TV tray easel.” Sitting in the family room after school, McDonald salt. “If you rub it trying to mix colors, you break up that prism painted along with Walter Foster’s How to Draw and Paint books. of color and mash it down so it loses its reflective quality. If you “Those books provided good composition to copy and taught me don’t rub it, little pieces of the underpainting will show through.” how to mix oils and color,” she said. Her education continued at Murray State where she studied fine art. McDonald began teaching adults at workshops through the McDonald explained that while some artists aim to reproduce landates something they are happy with,” she said of the rewards scapes, “My work is more of an immediate impression of what I of teaching. “And I like hearing how they see things differently, see. It has to be that way with plein air.” French for “in the open like a sunset, based on what they learn in class.” air”, plein air was popularized by French impressionists interested in painting the changing light. “You can see a gorgeous cloud and then McDonald’s interpretations of the Appalachian landscape have it’s gone,” McDonald said of painting outdoors. “You have about been commissioned by hospitals in Owensboro and Henderson, two hours before the light changes, so you can’t capture all the details.” Ky. Her work comforts healthcare workers, patients and visitors For McDonald, the challenge of plein air is whether or not the details at hospitals in Lexington, Ky. and Columbus, Ohio as well as she captures express the essence of her subject. brain injury clinics on two military bases.

“My friend Carolyn Hisel said, ‘Paint color with your heart, not your eyes,’” McDonald shared. “When you’re restricted to the pastels you have, you have to interpret some colors. I interpret what I see with feeling.”

In her work, McDonald sees light and shadow as it falls across the land, illuminating shapes and atmosphere. “To see light and shadow, people need to understand value—which is how dark to how light a color is,” she explained. Lexington Art League. “I like the delight when someone creReaders can find her work in Kentucky at Damselfly Gallery in Midway, Main Cross Gallery in Lexington, Wakefield-Scearce Gallery in Shelbyville and the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea in Berea. McDonald’s work is online at www.mcdonaldfineart. com and her Etsy store @MariannaMcDonaldArt. She has also posted video demonstrations and lessons on YouTube.