Meanwhile momentarily emerging from many more moons or months of minimal motivation. Wondering what to paint and why for want of any potentially incendiary incentive to move to make a mark or spark of inspiration.
While well aware the wide world with its wilful wanton ways wild words and weather and war and more the unsuspected invisible tricks and traps all fall for. Aware the world already overflows with endless arts beyond imagining in huge halls in all cities of the world, how then not be daunted by diversity ?
Wondering what to paint and why, being currently occupied with clipping hedges and grass by hand using an old pair of clippers with wobbly handles, (a brand new pair didn't work on grass at all). I don't use lawnmowers, strimmers, or any power tools, and am averse or allergic to noisy machines so it's a job to keep it in order and when weather or energy levels allow.
Crouched and clipping one of two small front lawns, i paused to look at the lupins proliferating in many large pale pink blooms. So i went and got the camera and some shots of potentially paintable compositions especially close up. A subject seeming suitable for a particular kind of brushwork and to being an image in its own right, something more than just depiction, a subtle but important point.
A painting on canvas 20" by 16" completed in three stages smoothly without niggle or struggle within the space of a week. Pencil drawing stage 1. Working from photo on computer screen, being the most challenging phase requiring a lot of measuring or checking the relative distance between and proportions of shapes so it all fits and with tones indicated so the drawing is complete in itself. Which explains why it can often be hard to make a start.
Stage 2. being simply the tones of light and dark, meaning areas of shadow, along with clarification of form and contour. Defining form so it stands out three dimensionally as volume relative to direction of light source. Integrating the overall structure, sculpturally and no 'tricks' involved but certain optical principles, it's about depth.
Stage 3. Colour clothes the form with feeling. Colour is not merely decorative, it's a relational radiance relative to its context. A frequency or vibration on a spectrum inclusive of all degrees of blend and gradation. As such, its relation to areas of feeling is one of subtlety and precision, density and luminosity, radiance and substance.
In a certain sense the point of the painting is not just its likeness to anything, but its actual vibe, its feeling vibration, as with music. So a lot of focus goes into mixing the exact hue and tone of a colour and in its relation to other colours.
Unfortunately i find that digital photography and digital technology so often falsifies certain colours and changing the source of light won't necessarily correct it, and it changes the whole feeling. A prime example here being the blueish tone of the wall, which in the actual painting has more of a subtle hint of violet in it
and a slightly deeper tone which works better within the whole. You get more the colour if you look from an angle below the screen. So much for the unquestioned quote: "A bad workman blames his tools", sometimes tools are faulty. Never trust a blind robot. You can quote me on that.
Here's the painting under electric light.
It gains on the wall and loses on the lupins.
The painting is basically a conscious focus and application of positive energy. Being a creative response to the undeniable awareness that the degree of corruption throughout what we call 'civilization' can be more accurately regarded as madness. Which is obvious to the degree that one is aware of it.
Regarding awareness, we don't know what it is we don't know. We tend to not want to discover what we don't want to know. Understandably. But ignorance is not bliss it's just delusion, liability, and we can't afford that. There are things the nature of which we need to be aware of.
So this is just a sharing glimpse of something i needed to create as a hopeful counterbalance to let's call it 'the other stuff' going on in the world. A focus on harmony, balance, sanity, benevolence. No big deal, an uncomplicated, unpretentious beautiful vibe, something to share. What else to call it but 'Group of Lupins', and meeting the challenge of another thirteen letter title like all the others. Actually not unlucky as we've been misled to believe due to the date the Cathar inquisition was staged, but apparently a higher octave. I suppose the lupins really do resemble a group of radiant beings involved in conversation. ~
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Martin Rainbowmaker
P.S. Any layout errors solely due to unaccountably temperamental tech, a 'preview' device that lies erratically, and a long struggle with a malfunctioning mouse.