Artist Annie Dover

The Offering by Annie Dover

I love this painting, it was created by an artist from California named Annie Dover

I was fortunate enough to meet Annie Dover at an opening at her show at the Peterson Cody Gallery in Santa Fe, NM. At the time I lived about 50 miles away so it was a beautiful drive up to Santa Fe.

Annie lives in California and according to her bio on the Peterson Cody Gallery website, she has been painting for more than 25 years and is largely self taught. She works with oil glazes, layers upon layers of them. She uses Winsor Newton oil paints but I am uncertain of whose linen she uses.

If you study her work online you will quickly see that she is a master of mood and using color to evoke emotion. Many of her paintings of people who seem utterly alone in a populated place. Weird to think you can be surround by so many other souls and yet feel that alone.

Detail from "The Offering" by Annie Dover

In The Offering I have a difficult time deciding if the two people in the painting are together, I think they are together because of their body language.  I also love how the shadows from the window panes bisect the figures similar to a crucifix behind a church altar. 

I’d like to share a few close ups of the details in this painting.

If I remember correctly Annie said she put about 50 layers of oil glaze on this painting. In case you aren’t aware a glaze is a thin wash of color and it’s a fairly common technique for watercolors and can be used with oils in a similar manner.

Here is close up of the chairs and the sunlight hitting the floor. Hopefully you can get a good sense of the melting layers of glaze and the sense of depth and realism they lend to this painting.

Hopefully you can see what is in this next picture (sorry my camera isn’t up to taking close up shots).  Annie has taken great care with the grain of the wood on the chair backs.

Detail from "The Offering" by Annie Dover

This painting is just amazing and most people, when they first see it assume it’s a photograph printed on linen.

Note- I just bought a new camera, hopefully I can get a few macro shots that can really show what I am talking about.