Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Off On Another Exciting Journey!

I HAVEN'T worn green fingernail polish since the 1960s, but tonight my fingernails are every color but red!
I pulled out a heavy piece of Arches watercolor paper - I was "saving" it for something important - and now that time is here ... I guess. I've been having fun since Sunday gooping on the color and rubbing around with my secret "paintbrush."
It's been very therapeutic and strange things have emerged. Up at the left is the beginning with my shadow foreshadowing the happenings. (There would indeed be a figure in the painting, albeit smaller.) And those lumps around my middle in the shadow? Apron pockets stuffed with paper towels - I swear!
And so the swirls of paint begin to accumulate and blend and get mixed and remixed. (Again with the shadows, due to the western sky coming through the window full of plants.) Hmmm. Greens, browns, yellows.
The only color I haven't added so far is red. I've put in purple and there is a lot of green with all sorts of browns.
And then the man comes forth!
See him again down below where the sky has emerged? There is a green circle next to him. A circle of confusion? A circle of entry? Uncertainty? I stamped other circles using the top to a big plastic bottle. Circles are also easy to swirl onto the canvas from the bottle. The "o's" are one of my favorite forms.
And now to get real earthy, I added browns of all hues and they suddenly began forming a tree trunk. And then the greens wanted to be added in all sort of leaf colors. Well, tree trunk, leaves ... soon there was a tree. But it was just leaves. I thought I might ruin it, but I decided to give it some form with branches. I just "drew" again with the bottle of paint and then a bamboo calligraphy pen. I'll let it dry and then paint over it again, but the thickness of the paint should give it a bit of a skeleton.
Like I said, it's been fun and who knows what will turn up next in this picture. It's gone further than I ever thought it would and like a story, it seems to have a mind of its own - femminismo

6 comments:

Candace said...

Oh golly. Jeanne, I really hope you take this as the compliment it is from me, this looks like it could be cover artwork for a classic book. Just superb and very mysterious. Esp that last. What colour and composition.
Excellent!
Candace in Athens.

Janet said...

oh what fun!

Julie Fillo said...

Jeanne,
Don't you just love swirling paint around and being spontaneous and just letting it happen! I love what you did, awesome!

Dawn Sellers said...

What fun - I love this. I played with paint myself over the weekend but didn't achieve such amazing results.

3rdEyeMuse said...

wow! thank you for sharing the process pictures - am so loving the shot with the shadows from the western sky. :)

Anonymous said...

I remember seeing Cabaret and thereafter wearing dark green nail polish and swearing to name my firstborn son Joel...