By Ken Orton
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Ken Orton's "Select" is a 36x54 original oil painting on canvas. This painting depicts a still life setting featuring multiple antique bottles. The bottles range in size, color and shape, some of which are filled with red, yellow, green, or blue liquid. The artist chooses to paint larger than life still lives, cropping in closely for more impact. Every detail from the reflections on the table, to the illusion of the raised letters on the bottles, is painted masterfully.
About the artist:
Ken Orton has dedicated his life to painting. His childhood was spent drawing the urban, industrial surroundings of Birmingham, England. At the Birmingham and then Manchester Colleges of Art he studied Art Education and after six years teaching in England accepted an offer to head the arts program at the Joan Miro Centro de Arte of the Baleares International School in Mallorca, Spain. For the next twenty years he would introduce the concepts of pictorial composition, color theory and draftsmanship to his students. Many of these students would go on to achieve great success in the many branches of the arts, architecture and music and remain close friends with their teacher to this day.
An integral part of Orton’s perspective training for his students was the study of the ellipse. He often used glass cylinders to demonstrate how the perceived ellipses generated by variations in the circle's relationship to the eye-line could be used as a powerful tool in creating the appearance of a third dimension on a two dimensional surface. Later, after he had moved to America in 1999, he discovered a treasure trove of antique mason jars...
Category
2010s Photorealist Ken Orton Paintings