Painting wild places...

When I first started seriously painting, I approached each painting as if it would be the most unique thing I created. I even told people that I didn't want anyone to be able to say, upon entering a gallery, "oh, there's a Sandra Hildreth over there", recognizing a painting by "style" alone. However, there were things I consistently focused on: composition, value, variety and repetition, and subject matter. My goal was to have my work be recognized by the quality of the product - not necessarily the style, technique, or subject matter. Now that I've settled into a mature, experienced manner of painting, it makes me wonder if I am recognizable.

It's hard for me to be very subjective about this - maybe you'd like to do me a favor and try this too. I went to the menu of my website and clicked on "Adirondack Oil Paintings" (by far the largest collection I have created); scroll to the bottom of the page and select "all". It will take a few moments for them all to load, but then there they are. All of the oil paintings I currently have available, not counting the ones that have gone to homes of new owners. Scroll up and down to see them all - do you think there is a Hildreth "style"?

It seems anyone with some basic art history knowledge (Art Survey 101 in college), if given a mixed set of images of works by well known artists, could probably sort them by the individual artists styles. Hmmm, at least those with very distinctive styles - or maybe they are only remembered because they had a body of consistent work at an accomplished level. Picasso never seemed to care - you can find realistic pencil portraits by him as well as the cubist musicians that can barely be identified as human. As an artist, it does make you ponder how you will be remembered, if remembered at all.

Of course then I also have the Adirondack Watercolor Paintings, Wildflowers, Mandalas, Paintings of Other Places, Wildlife, and Commissions! Will they all look like they've been done by the same person??  It would be interesting to hear what people might identify as  the characteristics that define the body of work that I've produced. The images below cover a period of 30 years! Right now I can tell you the one single thing that is consistent in all the paintings I've produced: S. Hildreth, and the year, somewhere in the lower right corner!