Title: Still Water
Artist: Sara Rae
Medium and Materials: Oil on linen canvas
Dimensions: 24" x 24"
Part of Sara Rae’s water garden series, Still Water presents a quiet, sun-dappled section of a lily pond in a balanced square format. Rather than relying on a traditional horizon or shoreline, the painting focuses on the shifting relationship between light, water, and vegetation as chartreuse lily pads and delicate reflections drift across deep, translucent blue currents.
Description
In Still Water, Sara Rae offers a richly textured, immersive water study on a 24" x 24" linen canvas. The composition removes familiar landscape markers such as shorelines, skies, and open horizons, placing the viewer in a weightless, top-down perspective that looks directly into the heart of a shimmering garden pool.
The painting is shaped by layered color and energetic brush texture. Dense clusters of floating lily pads fill the center and lower-left areas, built from short, lively strokes that move between chartreuse, mint, sage, and moss green. Around these forms, broad passages of indigo, teal, cobalt, violet, and midnight blue create a deep water field that frames the central vegetation. Visible oil ridges and unblended strokes give the surface a subtle vibration, reinforcing the cool, quiet atmosphere of a meditative garden pond.
Style and Composition
- Artistic Style: Abstract Impressionism with a lyrical, Monet-inspired water-garden sensibility.
- Composition: A high-density, all-over square layout centers a field of bright greens that gradually dissolves into darker, light-absorbing water currents around the edges.
- Focal Point: The luminous central area where chartreuse and pale yellow-green impasto highlights stand out against deeper teal and blue water passages.
- Color Palette: A cool maritime spectrum of indigo, cobalt, cerulean, teal, and violet is balanced by fresh chartreuse, sage, mint, and moss greens.
- Lighting and Atmosphere: Soft, diffused garden light suggests an overhead canopy and creates a serene, contemplative water-garden mood.
Application and Stylistic Technique
- Brushwork and Mark-Making: Loose, tactile brushwork gives the painting its physical presence. Thick directional strokes sculpt the water planes, while short impasto ridges suggest lily pads and preserve the immediacy of the artist’s hand.
- Layering and Depth: Saturated chartreuse greens advance visually across the surface, while transparent indigo and violet underlayers create the impression of depth beneath the water.
- Materials and Tools: Heavy-body oil paint on premium fine-grain stretched linen canvas, applied with medium flat bristle brushes and round script liners to preserve texture and maintain visible paint ridges.
Inventory Status: Available for purchase online or in the gallery.
Shipping / Pickup: Shipping is available, with items securely packaged in professional archival materials, insured, and shipped globally; complimentary local pickup is also available at our 23 North Main Street gallery.
