GAMBLE ON ROSES.

A blank canvas and a blank mind, at least that's a starting point.  Though it's usually quite a while before i proceed to the next stage. Needing an image that could embody a quality of beauty that even that word itself is too jaded by misuse to convey.

In a folder of digital photos, rambling roses in my back yard, originally a mere minimal rasp lost in long grass, and nurtured from next to nothing.  Flourishing and full flowering, blooming June after June.  Seeming suitable i chose to gamble on roses.   

Intricacies of small wildish roses in close-up, convoluted and complex to draw with accuracy. A gamble too, to position and compose with all elements in proportion, true to the photo without loss or distortion.  So the question arose, how to transpose, the photo eight and a half inches high, to canvas twenty inches high ?
I improvised a solution.

While it could be done by eye, a folded paper's edge marked to match the photo on the screen becomes a ruler.  Then folded longways on itself again and again and all divisions equalized.  Marked off as twenty equal divisions adjusted without calculation, being proportional equivalents to twenty inches, and translates to
actual inches on canvas.

Sometimes the best method may be no method at all.  In sharing, a showing is better.  Imagine describing how to tie shoelaces, we'd never get it.  The painting went through intentionally distinct stages over a period of two weeks.  All totally organic, nothing technical.  I confess to never finding it as easy as it may look, and you'd wonder why we do what we do.  Aspiring to be inspired and inspire, seems to involve method.

Preceding paragraphs relate to form and procedure.  Being just one way to form guidelines for following while also augmenting the weave of idiosyncrasies in the drawing's flow that just happen to be there unintended. Ironically impossible to describe, contrive, name, or even point to.  No surprise then, if all these words fall short, when there's no fixed target to speak of.  Jostled in a jumble that's a job to juxtapose, just to share the photo of the painting of a rose.

As with a certain specific visual characteristic of free-form flow which to the casual glance appears random and disorganized.  Whether you care to call it Tao, or naturalness, a description of which is not the phenomenon itself.  Subtlety seemingly invisible to rational sight.  Felt with the faculty with which we evoke images in the embers, creatures in the clouds, and facial features within foliage.

 Round off this ramble that arose around a gamble on a bramble.  Improvising on the most suitable image immediately at hand.  Something most structurally suited to epitomize a certain fresh, clean, and serene benevolent vibe.

Demystify and share the process in a way that may be helpful.  Using words as an aid to convey elusive but relevant known qualities in the realm of art and perception.  Ironically as always, but naturally so, there seem to be no adequately exact words to represent salient qualities so subtle as to be beyond categories of common classification.  Which may well be true of almost everything, as is often said, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.

To which i might alternatively add:  'The essence of art is present in heart when he 'the beholder' is absent'.  A sentence to contemplate closely.  The insight lost in the noise of a busy world, expressed as art.  ~

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker.

FIELD PATTERNS. - (The painting).

A walk in the woods yielded little in the way of fresh inspirational images other than a few close-ups of dry leaves and twigs, bits of broken bark, primeval organic abstractions of crumbling fungal detritus, emblematic and evocative of arcane medieval interwoven wall hangings to ponder on. All a bit imaginatively out there and a tinge phantasmagoric, but with a complexity potentially taxing and tedious to draw for love or leaves and a white primed canvas was bored with waiting. The photo perspective at least a radical down to earth take on what we call 'the landscape'.  (Click to enlarge.)*

The inspiration situation still elusive and seeming somehow symbolic and symptomatic of the state of society and current energies at large on earth, and so, served as corrective prompting to find a lighter, more expansive and far-seeing focus of imagery to make into a painting as a conscious counterbalance of harmony of feeling in subtle ways of form and warmer colour, elevating the mood above ground level leaves.

Days later i happened to be sharing a glimpse of a recent crop circle drone footage video with a friend who was visiting. In itself an epitome of light, expansive, and far-seeing. Even then, i didn't know if or how this would give rise to a painting. Surprisingly since it did i'll take a leap forward now and show the whole painting as an instant uplift from leaves and then elaborate on how the video was a catalyst.

FIELD PATTERNS.  Acrylic on canvas. 20" by 16".

Visually, artistically, abstractly even, the pervading basic colours of ripe crop, green field patterns blending into soft blue horizon haze of far distance felt and seemed to provide a theme, and even if it's seen as a scene it's the harmonious interrelationship of shaped colour that's of the essence of whatever it may mean.

So i followed the full drone footage in flow of folds of fields unfolding.  Attentive when to pause at high points of balanced  composition.  Then with an aerial perspective zoom in to some further distant spot.

Expanding at least linearly by enlarging distant vistas.  Then, knowing nothing about screen -shots and what-not, zoomed more precisely with a camera and got a couple of clear shots directly from the screen.  One carefully measured for relative pictorial proportions and transcribed via pencil point to canvas.

If at a glance the painting might be assumed to be aspiring to be a photo, its not.  Why when you've got a photo make a fake one?  As with the leisured lilt of this literal language let alone likenesses it's the poetic juxtaposition of words for their shape, colour, sound, and flow.  With a tendency to write in the same mode that i mix colours and make images.  The poetic license of likeness is just fuel and foundation for refinement of feeling.

The largely unseen and therefore invisible part of a painting in progress is a palette.  French for any bit of old cardboard and no big deal, but what goes on there is more than a mere distracted dab of a brush.  Think alchemy, fine-tuning.  What could be a more subtle process than combining pigments and refining the ratio to the utmost degree and often at length, going there just as often as you go to the painting.

What else to say about this painting, FIELD PATTERNS?  It speaks clearly enough for itself. Took just three days to complete.  The atmospheric soft blend of detail into distance offset by large warm foreground field shapes.  Where three balls of light having laid down a crop formation lightly as any winged creature lays an egg.

  A panoramic patchwork structured like stained glass, network of field borders punctuated by dotted trees like droplets on a web, musical notes or a string of beads. A healing image with gentle touch and minimal correction but for fine-tuning the tones of the large crop fields.  Pale blue on white canvas the sky  barely touched and all unlaboured.  Just a harmonious piece of colour blending and balance with a flavour of calm lightness and peace.  *

***  ***  ***  ***

Martin Rainbowmaker.

     

SPIRAL OF LIGHT. (Photo update.)

Sharing this new photo of the painting 'Spiral of Light' because it's closer to the actual colour of the painting than the one previously published on this blog on March 13. 2017.  Especially with regard to the colour blue.

It was painted in January 2017.  The reason for the colour change was that my original photo was not in focus.  A friend called by and offered to sharpen it up using photo-shop, something i have never used as i like to keep to the actual painting which takes many hours of fine-tuning in the process of working on it to get it right.

My friend demonstrated the range of what was possible with many variations and we settled on the version previously published.  While it was crisper and an improvement in that sense, the actual colour was altered considerably, the painting itself does have more of a softness and warmth.  Even so, digital cameras do often alter the colour, depending on the light source.

  

In the meantime i let another friend use the modified image to be on the cover of a lovely set of Vedic Astrology Cards she has designed. She recently expressed a wish that it was closer to the true colour, blue especially.

So i've just taken some new and more accurate photos.  Sending them as a surprise she wasn't expecting.  Promptly realizing it would also be good to post them on the blog.  Perhaps with one or two close-ups of detail as previously.

Besides, i'm glad of a valid opportunity to show the painting again in another light.  Hopefully conveying even more of my imaginative intention of vision described in the original post, 'Spiral of Light, March 13. 2017.  ~

 ~~~  ~~~  ~~~  ~~~

 Martin Rainbowmaker.

  A BRIEF PREVIEW.

Additionally, here's a brief preview of a forthcoming post.  A most recent painting, already completed, and the stages it went through.  Titled:  Gamble On Roses.  With accompanying explanatory article.  So called due to not knowing how it would turn out.  Fortunately it worked out fine. ~

MORE 'OTHER WORK'.

Continued from another post, simply an additional selection of illustrations done for Earthwatch  an environmental organisation during 1983 to 1993.  

Without further comment i let the images speak for themselves.  i suggest enlarging them on the screen to view in detail, as the Blogger process unfortunately seems unable to accommodate them 'extra large' without a glitch of overlapping the boundary, which seems rather dysfunctional but just click on the image works even better.

       

Well there are more, as well as a lot of extremely detailed book illustrations.  I've illustrated four published books plus one of my own, the original artwork of which was ultimately stolen and never published.

However, a half dozen colour photocopies of the illustrations are all that remains of that book, so i composed an article around the gestation and saga of that work which can be found on this blog under the title 'The Gypsy Child', posted in 2013.  Type that title in the small box at top left if you're curious.

Gypsy Child is also the title of the first song i wrote in the 1960s, which you can also listen to in the music section on this blog, and which inspired the book.  This is all very retrospective i know, but i prefer to share stuff of a more intimate nature.

Hopefully a light relief from the all prevailing and ongoing horrendous karma dramas, intrigues, shocking scandals, revelations, leaks, false flags promptly discredited as hoax, mud-slingings, back-stabbings, cover-ups, unnoticed creeping genocides, and sensational fear porn surging through the internet and changing daily but remaining boringly the same, revolution without resolution.

Meanwhile a better future is forever coming soon (sooooon), or 'so on, and so on', which is why it's never present, when was a future ever present?  Time, money, and fear.  Imagine a gentler world, now there's a challenge, actually a neglected art. Imagination is in the present so it's not just imaginary.  In the imaginary future i may share twenty meticulously detailed architecturally accurate drawings of actual castles, but i've done enough for the moment, unexpectedly so, and there i was, talking about artist's block. ~  

 ~~~~   ~~~~   ~~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker

SOME OTHER WORK.

Over a period of ten years, 1983 to 1993, i regularly contributed illustrations, magazine cover drawings, posters, bumper sticker and T shirt designs etc. for Earthwatch, a local grassroots environmental organisation no longer in existence.

Few who know me or the work on this blog will be aware i've done a lifetime of other artwork besides paintings.  Sustaining the flow of the current blog posts over five years there have been quite naturally and continue to be periods of what's called 'artist's block'.  Though that's always been the case and the same applies to the writing.

While i may or may not appear to be prolific i have always been familiar with the diversity of concepts and forms of what constitutes a painting.  Yet such multifaceted possibilities regularly produce an impasse where it's not apparent how to proceed and that's an understatement.  

It just feels more amplified from a lifetime of exploring different approaches and since posting regularly online. Especially from having an overview from looking at thousands of paintings you can get the impression that everything imaginable is and has been already explored by someone somewhere.

Such infinite diversity can cause you to question the possibility of creating something that has communicable personal significance and evolving it into further areas.  The alternative seeming to be repetition with variation which obviously becomes limitation at some stage.

Even though creativity in and for itself is in no way related to competitiveness which is merely comparative, inhibiting playfulness.  Due to the commercialization of art and its competitive materialism it can seem dauntingly so.

Along with the exponential advance of sophisticated computer generated imagery and technology in all areas of life, where there is a gain there is also the possibility of an imbalance in favour of progressive dominance by artificial intelligence over all that is intrinsically sacred. A trend we are persuaded to embrace without question, in itself a cause for wise circumspection of possible motive.

A slight digression on the theme of the creative urge to flow and share encountering a paradoxical anomaly.  For now i'm posting a select few from a huge body of previous graphic work.  Just for the record here's a handful of the few drawings that remain and but for a co-worker who salvaged them long after the event i would have no record at all.  Some published book illustrations may follow.  While i puzzle over how to express in paint and colour and the conundrum of how the barely conceivable but universally longed for is quite naturally seemingly beyond the means to express.  ~        

More Earthwatch drawings continued in another post.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker

CHERRY BLOSSOM.

I wonder at having produced another painting despite being critical of anomalies within it.  So now i wonder what can be said of relevance to how it came to be, inspiration or lack of, or the context it came out of, which requires other images besides the words to describe properly.

It's not as if i'm on a roll, in any sense of the word, quite otherwise.  Zero inspiration which was barely bearable and i had to do something about it.  Find a visual clue, an image to contemplate, something to express a contrast to the apparent current chaos prevalent in the world, and hopefully without being predictable.

There are some experimental photos i took for a blog post titled: 'A Global Spring', May 1st. 2014.  To refer to the article and see a few of the photos, type that title into the search box at top left corner of the blog.


A rainbow spectrum tinted dark glass globe, carefully placed in positions relative to an overhanging cherry tree in full blossom, in a so called 'Peace park' that's never used for peace in any practical or productive sense.  Ever closer zoom shots of blossom reflected in the rainbow sphere.  Being the most succinct image of peace i could imagine and improvise in the moment.

Choosing a suitable photo and zooming in, as if approaching some exotic planetary sphere, in depth beyond curved confines, into an unfamiliar world of semi-abstraction bathed in blended bands of rainbow blossom.

Admittedly complex and confusing to simplify and transfer on to a canvas.  Fine in a photo but challenging to make a painting from it that works.  So to focus on a portion of it enlarged on the screen thereby losing some focus in the process, but getting enough on the canvas to gradually shift from the back and forth to the painting having a life in itself.

            Cherry Blossom.  Click to enlarge.         

     

Even so, it's difficult to duplicate such a profusion of enlarged  and out of focus blossoms.  With precise but arbitrary colours being the only indication of light on form. Becoming so laborious i had to let it be unresolvable for a while, daunted, distracted as i was by looming dealings with doctors and dentist, toxic chemtrail shocks, the populace oblivious, and weary with wars in the world.

Yet i did return to the painting, making whatever subtle adjustments and modifications seemed possible for a semblance of resolution.  Plus an updated and better photo as well as a completed description of the process so as to be worth sharing.

With this addition, i mean, where on earth is the collective vision of a world at peace with itself ?  Yes it's such an innocent question that it's considered too absurd to even imagine asking.  So, being 'mature' and 'educated' we don't even imagine such things, remaining preoccupied and coping with the long buried wound of its absence.  Which is why i posit such a naive, taboo but otherwise valid question.

Where is the collective life affirming vision ? Where is the collective good news ? The same goes for beauty, truth, honesty, integrity etc. When it's vision that counts, a positive sane project for our communication technology, creative education, art and music. Imagine everyone asking where is the vision ? The one whereby everyone is liberated and benefits, and not just the few, who then put limitation on everyone else. If it's not good for everybody then it's not good. Bypassing adversarial forces we have all the means to manifest if used correctly.

There is an indigenous native american saying: 'When there is no vision the people perish.'
Apparently we weren't listening. *

 **** **** ****
Martin Rainbowmaker

GOLDEN AGE MEME ?

    GOLDEN AGE MEME ?

The word, 'meme', seems to mean something like a blend of myth and theme.  one that spreads by popular usage and comes to be taken as an unquestioned given fact.  We seem to be swimming in a sea of such memes.

Two current examples are, the concept of 'ascension', and an imminent 'golden age'.  It's a daunting challenge to write about succinctly, as documentation of these interrelated themes is extensive, persuasive, and pervasive.  Becoming, like the concept of Christmas, an apparent reality simply because a significant majority agree to participate and not question where the idea originated from.

The religious connotation of the word 'ascension' is for many people not easy to dissociate from, making it hard to conceive of other than Biblical interpretations.  Who can say, and to what degree its current alternative usage may relate to wishful thinking, as there seems to be a divergence from Vedic texts regarding time cycles in which it might apply, but i'm no authority on the subject.

Connecting a few sources contributing to the thread of the current popular hypothesis regarding 'ascension'/'golden age', whether prophecies, time cycle calendars such as the Mayan, to contemporary authors, teachers, such as the mystic Peter Deunov.


The Ra material channeled by Carla Rueckert in the 1980s, incorporated by David Wilcock and combined with the findings of the Russian scientist Alexey Dmitriev who in his paper 'The Planetophysical State of Earth and Life' stated ' the whole solar system is changing', and by implication we, and all life are due for radical change also and which can be scientifically demonstrated.
Then add, The New Earth.org, Montalk.net, John Lash/Gaia Sophia's Correction, Webre, Cobra, Tolec, and finding i'm not up to the task, the list is endless, forget succinct dot lists.

Then i witnessed Alfred Lambremont Webre boldly stating repeatedly that "we go straight from Kali Yuga into Satya Yuga", that is, from where we are now, just into the bronze age straight into the golden age, and Peter Deunov says much the same thing.

In stark contradiction to the Vedic text and diagram which progresses from Satya, to Treta, to Dwapara, to Kali, rotating cyclically in reverse order to return to a golden age over a period of thousands of years.  I swear i saw Alfred's version of the chart flash on the screen for about a second whether intentional or not.  Later scanning frame by frame Alfred's long interview with Patty Greer and Penny Kelly i failed to find it. All rather puzzling.  (A later insert: I do wish to add however that i do respect Alfred and the work he is doing.  Especially after listening to a most powerful three hour long interview presentation with four good, strong, well known creative women all targeted for speaking truth and just aired on March 3rd.  on his site: News Inside Out.  Very inspiring and i do recommend listening to it as it's really crucially important.)*****

In a culture already ripe with wishful thinking it only takes a continually rolling snowball of persuasive sounding hypotheses to turn it into a self perpetuating popular belief.  The emergent popular meme, in some sense a metamorphosis of previous ones, says, contrary to appearances, everything is rapidly rising in 'frequency' and we must do so too otherwise we won't make it.  At least the hypothesis is rising in frequency.  How do we go from global war and corruption to a natural harmonious order and is a cosmic wave the catalyst or what's commonly called 'a phase shift' ?

These simplistic paragraphs are a mere distillation of an equal amount of notes discarded for simplicity.  Not intended to discredit but to point at what may have gone unnoticed.  How did we come to be in such a clamourous ocean of contradictory memes?  It would be good if the query proved to be of no consequence after all.
Just an innocent question about 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' ~

          ~~~  ~~~  ~~~  ~~~
            Martin Rainbowmaker

 Paintings: Towpath Vision.  April 2013.
          Pre-Dawn Fields.  October 8. 2014.