Inspiration: Mac Stevenson

One of my new favorite landscape artists is Mac Stevenson. His work appeals to me as an animation artist because of it's soft look and simplicity. I also love paintings that strike you with their color, and Mac's work does that for me.

He's obviously mastered color theory because his landscapes pop out at you no matter what color scheme he's using.

This one is predominately warm, with a skilled use of cool purple to attract the eye. More than half the composition is almost the same red, but it works beautifully. I love it!

In this one he contrasts warm and light against dark, muted, and cool. Giving most of the painting to the sky makes for a beautiful composition.

This one is basically the same except he favors the land more. He also uses an analgous color scheme that's mostly warm. It still has the same appeal as the image above as Mac's skillfully placed purple and green (cool colors) at the horizon line.

Don't you just want to be here?

Here's my favorite. I love the swirling clouds, and the morning light. The oranges and purples, mixed with the muteds yellows and greens of the landscape really give it some punch. I'm also a sucker of wide format landscapes like this. I can see myself working like this if I ever get into landscapes.

I came across Mac's work at a frame store in the mall of all places. I saw one of his pieces (not shown here) called, "Morning Light II", and I had to find out more about the artist. I asked the store owner, and she gave me an artist bio. Mac's been at it for about 20 years. Which just proves to me once again that I have a lot of work do. And seeing this kind of stuff just inspires me to get working.

Check out Mac's website: http://macstevenson.com/