Painting continues to be a challenge right now. I am painting much slower and more deliberately than usual. There is beauty all around where I live and especially at this time of year but it has been difficult to focus on that given the world situation. In any case, there are periwinkles in the yard that have been blooming for a couple of weeks already and they made a natural choice for painting.
My method was a bit different for this one. I started with an under-painting of transparent burnt orange colour. (There’s only a bit of that still showing.) Then I built up the rest over a few days …so not alla prima.
Here’s Tom’s lovely poem for this piece. Enjoy!
Stars that cluster in the night
burning blue against the fall
of darkness, burning hot and bright,
expending everything and all
for brief eons of renown
as a constellation’s crown
in some distant elsewhere sky.
They burn and live and then they die
in vast explosions, sending seeds
to find their resting place in clouds
where younger stars will be endowed
with all a younger planet needs.
Then other creatures will arise
and look in wonder to the skies.
image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2020 TJ Radcliffe
Beautiful! Yes, creativity at this time, feels much more thoughtful, and focused on essence, in my experience as well… and, that feels like a good thing 🙂. Gorgeous work!
Thank you! It’s a bit like wading through treacle right now …but hopefully I’m learning things. 🙂
The ‘flecks’ of burnt umber make the painting. I love the purple(s) but the magic lies in you ruse of the orange to give it a little zing, like a tiiiiny pinch of cayenne pepper in soup.
Hahaha Yes! Great analogy – and thanks!