Wishing You a Bountiful 2012

Hope in 2012 everything
that you hold meaningful
remains and thrives in your life,
a bountiful, living garden,
and,
if you have unfulfilled wishes,
they come to fruition and blossom
in all the ways that you would most like.

*hugs and love, Brenda

In the Park in June, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2011, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, sized with Golden GAC-100, and painted with watercolour and India inks.

Notes on the painting:

A few layers of GAC-100 (artificial rabbit glue) on the paper prepares it for painting. I found the GAK gives you a little time to change your mind - you can dab the colour out before it sets permanently, so it is a little more forgiving than unsized paper which absorbs the colour instantly. It has a satin shine that is not like a varnish because it grabs the inks and sets them. It is faintly glossy, like brushed egg whites on cooked pastry, beneath the paint, which overlays it and is opaque. The GAK is not like a varnish because it is underneath the paint. It gives a luminescence to the painting that the camera does not quite capture.

I have no idea how you would varnish a piece like this. A matte finish would destroy that faintly glossy luminescence, and a satin finish would remove the deep opacity of the paint.

Which means, keep paintings like these in my book, or framed under glass. It is a fragile surface that I would not wish to intrude upon with a fixative.

A dimly wrought portrait of my daughter. Because I could not work with the paint for too long, I was not able to get a likeness. The woman in this painting is older than my daughter and does not really resemble her. Her energy is here, though.

                              

Midnight Sun -finished!

Midnight Sun: Wind Over Grass, 28" x 22", 71cm x 56cm, oil on canvas, 2011.

When the river runs in bands, water ribbons her arm. Or she dances on rocks across. Those who support uphold everything in the underpainting. What is there to say of wheat fields or grass curling flames? Under the midnight sun strange dreams dance with intent. 

A painting depicting contact dance - which is... out of the dance studio, for sure, and into the dreamtime! And a solar eclipse, which reminds me of the black light, the midnight sun of the mystics.

Finally I have finished this painting! It's a strange little painting, but I quite like it now.

Here is a slideshow of the studies and previous versions of the painting:



Or a direct link:

Midnight Sun: Wind Over Grass

                              

Woman of the Sea

Whiteness, a high tide drawn by the moon. Light coiled around and inside her, claiming her. Thoughts passed through like schools of fish. Luminosity opened in the depths and kept opening.


Woman of the Sea, 2011, 12" x 10", 30.5cm x 25.5cm, India ink, conte crayon, oils on [100lb archival] paper.

She got wetted and blotted and re-painted a few times. This is what she became. Below is an earlier moment on the journey towards the final version.



Another Woman of the Sea, mostly oils on [100lb archival] paper. Those white scraping marks, like dots, on her right bother me, yet if I remove them the foreground, where she is, and the background, where the dark ocean is, separate from each other too much to my liking. Those white scrapes anchor her to the swirl of fluidity, the sea.

 .... yet I am still finding my relation to this painting like it was to the drawing, difficult.

But it's quite detailed, isn't it. About 4 layers of different coloured paint. Interesting what can emerge when you prepare for a run. :) The living room/dining room in my tiny apartment is currently set up as a make-shift studio, so it's just a few feet to the work table. But it takes gumption to get there. I did, and I done.

So tuckered out now, after that jaunt of paint, I'll have to have lunch and a rest. [ps It looks better in a large size -click on it -it'll open to a new screen.]

I am seeing the Symbolists here, and the French Surrealists.