Atmospheric Gardens

Adjusting the intensity, temperature and placement of her colors, Kathleen Rietz creates airy florals

- Kathleen Rietz

Floral gardens have been a significant life. They filled my childhood with memories of misty morning walks in my mother's and grandmother's gardens, still in my nightgown, feeling the cool earth under my feet and the fragrant dew in the air as bees buzzed from flower to flower. Gardens are a connection to important places, and women in my life who've since passed on, but whose memories and love are kept alive in my work.

For what I refer to as my garden paintings, my goal as an artist is to capture the feeling of atmosphere. I find I am able to do this two ways. One way is primarily through the use of glazes. The other is through my choice of paint colors-notably the temperature, intensity and placement of colors.

Glazes are a main feature of my work. Through glazing, I can achieve a buttery, diffused softness in my work, a quality which is attributed more often to oil paintings than to acrylic paintings. I can achieve the desired consistency of paint for glazing by using either acrylic glazing liquid or retarder. Both work well.