Laurie Justus Pace
Shooting Star 32 x 48 Oil on Canvas
Mirada Fine Art Story Tellers 2016
laurie justus pace “Viewing a Laurie Pace Painting is a rich experience that drips with color and emotion. Her passionate works are alive with movement and texture boldly created with a palette knife. Constantly pushing the edge, she loves working in oils, dramatically carving out the thick paint, fluid with color and bursting with energy.� Steve Sonnen, Mirada Fine Art
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GraphicsOneDesign1998-2016
As splintering light fractions into thousands of colors, Laurie’s journey in life has encompassed many careers: from runway model to graphic artist, from musician to singer, from teacher to artist. She believes the greatest influence in her life is the beauty God provides daily. A degree in art, ten years with an advertising agency, and thirty-seven years teaching art have brought her full circle to top honors at international art shows in oil, watercolor and photography. Constantly pushing the edge, Laurie presses in her work to celebrate and discover. Her compositions are fluid, with color and dimension setting the pace for a unique painting journey each time. Her artwork has been published and featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and books. She has been a featured artist in Western Art Collector, Appaloosa Journal, American Art Collector, Cowboys and Indians and the Dallas Morning News. Her work has been published on the covers of Appaloosa Journal and The Sighthound Magazine, as well as on several yearbooks, publications and music CD’s.
LauriePace.com
http://www.whitetreestudio.ie/ GraphicsOneDesign1998-2016
Shooting Star Laurie Justus Pace
http://www.whitetreestudio.ie/
Story Tellers Mirada Fine Art 2016
Laurie Justus Pace Shooting Star “I heard what you said. I’m not the silly romantic you think. I don’t want the heavens or the shooting stars. I don’t want gemstones or gold. I have those things already. I want…a steady hand. A kind soul. I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe. I want to love, and be loved.” Shana Abe “It was the Pancakes that drove me to the Shooting Star.” Laurie Pace
Shooting Star come from the heavens, not from me. It should have been named Shooting Star and Banana Pancakes. Steve had contacted me about a show he was putting together and wanted two additional paintings from me. It was summer, hot and I was not sure about creating and painting so quickly, performing on demand you might say. But I jumped into the studio and pulled two 32 x 48 canvas from my back stock. As I placed the canvas on my easel, I knew I would be doing two vertical pieces because of the strength imposed just by the size. The first one was entitled Sunrise Red Hills. It came out of somewhere but I am not sure where. I was so mesmerized as I painted Red Hills Sunrise, I became lost in time and thought, knifing the paint to the music in the air. Two days later I finished Red Hills Sunrise and pulled the second canvas to the easel. You can see by the first shot all the gold and red I was laying on the surface of the canvas with brush. I put a few symbols into it and allowed the composition to find its own way. From that point on, there was no thought to destination, only the feel of the paint on with my knife on the surface. I began working with the knife grabbing colors bit by bit. This you can easily see in this process
shot. Turquoise, my favorite Caramel Brown and Verditer Blue piling on top of the yellow gold and red. No rhyme or reason. Just movement and color. Notice the pull in the center up and down with Caramel Brown. At this time, I had no idea where I was building what. Looking now at this photo, I can almost feel water pooling at the bottom. Music in the room was Jack Johnson, Norah Jones and Celtic Women. The energy seemed to pick up as I moved forward. I saw the first horse right away. The definition was calling to me for placement. I forged ahead and began establishing the layers to create this magnificent creature with no thought to my destination at all. It was purely the journey that kept my adrenal going and the paint flying. Slowly you can see the orange fading in the background overcome by layers and a slight new area erupting over the reds... a beautiful brilliant orange. The sky seems soft and unaffected. The unknown loomed ahead. The bottom of the painting began to darken in a natural way. It did not seem to want to call attention to it. Most of the paint was active in the center creating a powerful column of colors
Story Tellers Mirada Fine Art 2016
Laurie Justus Pace Shooting Star
At first I thought there was going to be a horse just behind the first horse on the left, the larger one that appeared first. I felt the second call of power to the right of the caramel browns shooting up in the mid section of the painting. The second horse appears slightly back and is watching the first horse that leads you to believe he or she might be dancing. The left horse stays the most important lead in the painting. The secondary horse watches the action. If I were forcing the painting, there would have been a third horse. I always work in odd numbers. Funny thing was... Red Hills Sunrise had only two ponies in it. If you look closely you will find patterns throughout the painting. I love to pattern things in threes. In this painting there are several repeated patterns. Notice from the top right the red/orange bold streak that starts in the background, weaves through the still back right horse and pops out over on the moving horse. This diagonal is complimented by the opposite angle from the bottom right shooting up to meet the reds. It almost forms an arrow head zipping your eyes back and forth through the composition. Still the sky remains inactive. It had not spoken to me to define what is there. Can you see the sculpting lines in the legs of the front left horse? The movement brings in depth and color breaking from the powerful angles of the background. In each leg are accents of red, gold, green and white.
What about the movement of the knife lines in the front horse? Do they define the planes and the muscles? Did you notice the tight mane? It is not my typical flowing mane flying in colors. And what will happen with the caramel brown still heavily defined in the center? On the front horse left, notice the define scrapes in the face. I realized I had to anchor the left horse to the horizon to define where it was. I used a strong red arc with black behind it. I continued this arc through the center of the brown at the top defining the red and a white arc with it. This white arc connects to the white in the top right corner. Back over to the left front horse again I spliced in a side swipe with my knife anchoring white on the downward swing. As I stood back from the canvas and Jack crooned on about Banana Pancakes... I thought breakfast at supper. It was about 10 in the evening close to bedtime, but I had missed dinner. I stood over the balcony from the studio looking down in the den and asked my sweet husband if he could make me pancakes. Suddenly I noticed a shooting star in the floor to ceiling windows of the den. It shot across all three windows right before my eyes. I raced back into the studio and grabbed my palette knife and sliced in the trail of the shooting star against that quiet sky. Best Pancakes I have eaten in a long time!
Story Tellers Mirada Fine Art 2016
Laurie Justus Pace
Red Hills Sunrise 32 x 48 inches Oil on Canvas
Laurie Justus Pace Shooting Star 32 x 48 inches Oil on Canvas
Mirada Fine Art Story Tellers 2016