California Landscapes by Robert Sandidge

This week’s featured artist is from the heart of California gold country – and his paintings reflect his love of that land.

Robert Sandidge paints in an impressionist style and captures the depth and overall feeling of a location in his work.

His paintings are full of subtle hues overlaid with vivid splashes of color that emphasize the natural beauty of the landscape.

In each of his paintings, Sandidge creates depth by neutralizing distant shapes and colors with blues and whites taken from the color in his skies. The boldest colors then appear to come forward, dominating his paintings and visually pushing the paler horizon line farther back.

In this painting, he’s created even more depth than normal by using an unusual crop. Not only does the vertical shape work well compositionally with the tree, but unlike more traditional landscape format, it compresses the scene width-wise and only gives our eyes room to roam deeper INTO the painting.

In this last landscape, I love both the simplicity and the space. The hills of California will always hold a special place in my heart, and this work really captures that feeling for me.

Sandidge has used the most vivid color in the painting sparingly – creating a deep blue river that twists its way between criss-crossed valleys. The reddish color in the foreground is just bold enough to bring the scene right to the viewer, while subtly complimenting the green clumps of trees dotting the landscape.

More of Robert Sandidge’s art (including still life and portrait work) can be seen at his website, www.sandidgegallery.com.