Etspiration Thursday: QuercusCreations

Our new Etspiration Thursday artist fills his canvas with images of beauty in all forms.  Using expert photomanipulation skills, digital finesse, and the art of photoprinting, QuerusCreations melds textures and prints together to form a new definition of beauty.  His keen eye for creating nostalgic, romantic textures mixes with a love of color to create a portfolio of half-remembered dreams.  His images are blurry at times, starkly colored in others, but all evoke a sense of memories past, when they seem sweeter than they did in the present.  (all images copyright to the artist)

"The Thaw" - I absolutely fell in love with this image.  I am very interested in natural processes of the earth and how this is beauty in its most basic form, and here the artist has explored exactly that theme.  Taking something so mundane as the frost melting from the leaves, he has created an image both beautiful and haunting.  He layered different images of ice melting, and the result is stunning.  I am very impressed with how he creates incredible mental depth to his pictures by having the layered textures be similar to the theme of his pictures; here, the textures are layered prints of ice melting because it pertains to the theme of the picture.  The depth that these layers create are wonderfully rich and heavy.  You can feel the leaves beneath you fingers, the dampness, the cold.  But he has manipulated the colors so that there are spots of warmth within the chilliness, and you truly get the sense of melting.  He has also avoided overdoing the textures.  You can still make out individual leaves, but they're just blurred enough to make it seem abstract.  It's a fine line between the suggestion of a theme and a hodge-podge of nothingness.

"Swans".  I adore this photo because of its timeless quality, the romantic atmosphere, and a slightly nostalgic feel to it.  He's put in just the right colors; nothing disturbs the senses or seems out of place, and they highlight the paleness of the swan.  The eye is drawn right to the mother, and from there naturally follows down to the ducklings.  He's almost hidden them from view, which I like; a sense of discovery in a piece is always appreciated.  Again, he's layered prints of water on top, which have to do with the theme of the picture.  The artist has such talent at creating a gritty, grained texture. 

"The Archway" - this time he used digital manipulation rather than layering of prints to create the effects, part of his "photopaintings:".  The darkening of the trees in the front is brilliant, as it allows the background to come into its own, highlights the fabulous interweaving of tree limbs, and creates a greater sense of depth.  One of the hardest things, I find, is creating a three-dimensional effect in a two-dimensional world.  When you can add just a little touch that helps converge the two, it has a powerful impact on the image.  The grainy texture he used over the whole piece is also great because it makes me think of sunlight slicing through the trees, like you see when the forest canopy is very dense.  You get that same streaky effect.  He's also been able to capture a very fine-art quality in the picture, making it look more like a painting, especially with the tree in the center of the background.  For some reason I imagine that in a Renaissance painting of a Lord and Lady out for a picnic :) 

A man of many talents, QuercusCreations also uses photoprinting techniques like using wax and paper that doesn't absorb all the ink.  He also offers greeting cards!  Click here to start browsing his Etsy shop!