Royal Crescent at Bath - past present and future

When I was first asked by David and Martyn to paint a large picture for them, I was more than happy to accept. I would far rather do commissions than exhibition work, because then the client gets exactly what they want, and I tailor the painting to fit their needs. and I do this by listening to what the client wants. Sometimes its a short request, sometimes it's a longer one.

The brief was to depict them both walking infront of the Royal Crescent at Bath, on a windy Autumnal day, their three dogs with them, and the parents of one of them off to one side accompanied with their dog, and the sisters and their husbands of the other standing some way back in the background. As well as that, there would be the brother of one of them and the mother of the other, both up in the clouds to show that they are no longer with us, but are close in heart, mind, and soul. The colours of the painting were to match the particular colour scheme of their sitting room, and preferably weren't to have much green or blue in it, which made it somewhat interesting, as half of it is sky, and a good third of it is grass! As well as that they wanted the painting to be dramatic, and not be lost against the strongly patterned wallpaper of their lovely period house. It was to be in oils, and show movement as the wind picks up the leaves and blows them across the grass. And there were to be eyes in the trucks of the trees, showing happiness.

Ok, all of that is possible.

It helped greatly that they sent me a large selection of photos to work from - of themselves individually walking infront of the Royal Crescent at Bath, and of their dogs, and the other people in the painting. They also kindly sent me some pictures of the room where the painting is to hang, so that I could bear that in mind for the positioning of the colours and edges of the painting. Its on a block canvas which is 3 inches deep, so it will stand nicely against the patterned wallpaper and not be lost against it. I was to be working with browns, creams, plums, purples, reds, silver, white, and black.

So, I knew who I was painting. I knew the setting where I was painting them. I knew the palette of colours I was working to. I knew the size of the painting (31 x 47 inches) and that it would be in oils.

But, to start with I wasn't sure how I was going to show the wind.

And then, it dawned on me. I would paint the wind as an entity all of its own. In silver, since that was one of the colours requested.  The wind would start high up on the right hand side of the painting, and swirl around and across the painting, swirling around the people in the foreground, depicting love from the beloved people in the sky, and movement of the wind as it swirled the leaves in the picture as well.

I started with a simple pencil drawing, and that went on to another pencil drawing which is the first picture I am showing here, and that is the image that was transferred onto the canvas and then I started the acrylic under painting of garish colours you can see in the second image, to give the oils a depth of colour. And only then I was able to start the  oils proper and that evolved eventually to the finished subtle painting as you see it here. Its had many hours of work put into it, and I am delighted with the result. There is a lot of texture in the paint, particularly in the silver of the jagged wind, and the oils have really lent themselves to the movement and texture of the grass and leaves and some of the clouds. If you click on each image you can see far more of the detail in the pictures. There are a lot of colours even with the limitations of the palette, and a feeling of distance through the aspects of the wind and clouds. I love the bright red of the shadows of the foreground around the main figures, and the curvature of the Royal Crescent. There is a large Wow factor about the painting, for me, and its certainly a conversation piece pulling loved ones together. And I absolutely adore the wind! It's racing across the canvas, in a rush to be on its way.  The whole painting is a landscape, and a portrait, a surreal, spiritual, realistic, abstract painting that pulls a lot of my talents together to create something that is totally unique, and special for the people it is intended for.

The painting is entitled "David and Martyn at The Royal Crescent at Bath - past, present and future". And the photo here really doesn't do it justice, but whilst its drying and I can't move it upright for a better photo, this is the best I can do. But when you're standing infront of it, you can see the nuances of detail, the texture in the paint, the movement in the wind, the leaves as they whisk across the grass, the details in the faces of the people, and the animals, and the feel of the place depicted, and the Autumn day as the clouds scud across the sky.

Divine and most beautiful Goddesses

Like wanting to hang on to the last stolen minutes with a lover, I don't want to say goodbye. I want to stay, in the comfort of their presence, staring into their eyes, gaining comfort from their connection.......... So it is with a form of sad regret that I have to say farewell, and walk away with a lingering glance, and to say to myself that I can do no more. That's it. It's finished.

But the sadness of that part is replaced with something else. A feeling of creation. Of  a maternal pride in the beauty of birth.

The birth of a painting.

Its taken me two months in the creation. From the first formed ideas rising from the request for a painting of seven Goddesses - Astarte, Diana, Isis, Hecate, Demeter, Kali and Innana. But the guy who has requested it knew at the time that he was asking a big thing of me. He KNEW it was going to be difficult, a challenging painting, something that few artists could do. He knew that he wanted a woman to paint it for him since only a woman could put the feminine into it, and it is SUCH a feminine painting. He tells me its taken him years to find me.

I'm glad he did.

It took me almost three weeks of research to find out about them all.... their characters and personalities:

Kali is the Indian goddess associated with eternal energy, the bright fire of truth, her three eyes represent the sun moon and fire with which she can observe the three modes of time - past, present and future. She is a gentle mother and fierce warrior, a manifistation of the divine mother. She destroys only to recreate. She destroys sin, ignorance and decay. She is beyond time and space. She is the death of death. She is also associated with intense sexuality, she is the Hindu goddess of creation, protection and destruction.

Innana is the ancient Sumerian mother goddess who combines earth and sky. She is powerful, self sufficient, passionate. She is a representation of the many facets that go into being a woman and the myriad roles they play, as well as a guide to the dark places of psychological and spiritual death and disintegration. She is a goddess of sexual love, fertility and warfare. Associated with lions, she is courageous.

Demeter is the Greek goddess of grain and fertility, she is the pure nourisher of youth and the health giving cycle of life and death. She is the bringer of the seasons, the goddess of harvest. Nurturer of mankind, goddess of compassion, a kind goddess grieving for her lost daugher Persephone causes winter each year. Great joys and sorrows are her reminder.

Astarte is the ancient Phoenician great mother goddess, Queen of Heaven. The guiding star, she is the goddess of love and sexual desire. She is pride in feminine being, a celebration of the abundance that comes from the energy of a woman in touch with herself and her body. Associated with the moon, she is a beautiful and dangerous goddess. She is both life and death. She has inner strength, wisdom, independance and spirit that gives birth to our creativity and encourages us with our successes. She is both the maiden and mother goddess and personifies the passion of life, the beauty of mother earth and the sacredness of all being.

Isis is the ancient Egyptian goddess, ideal mother and wife. Patron of nature and magic, and giver and sustainer of all life, saviour of all people, goddess of medicine and wisdom. She is considered the goddess of rebirth and reincarnation, protector of the dead. She represents total feminity, she can overcome death itself but is not above grief as one of her tears shed while Osiris lay dying caused the Nile to flood. A wonderful image of the goddesses ability to give and restore life she underscores the depth of emotion that even a goddess must feel.

Hecate is  a Greco-Roman goddess associated with magic, witches and ghosts. She is Queen of the Night, honoured and feared as the protectress of the oppressed and those who lived on the edge. Guardian of the household, she is protector of everything newly born. She has power over storms, lover of solitude, a virgin goddess, beautiful, shining and luminous. Walking the roads at night visiting cemetaries, a will o the wisp, she can see into the past present and future. Spirit of black magic with the power to conjure up dreams, prophecies and phantoms.  She is goddess of trivia. Farsighted, a protector of women. Familiar with the process of death and dying as well as new life, she reminds us of the importance of change and helping to release the past.

Diana is goddess of the light, perpetual virgin of the hunt, an emblem of chastity. She has strength, athletic grace and beauty. She is associated with wild things and especially responsible for anything young and vulnerable. Goddess of solitude, comfortable with the wilderness, she represents the mystic primitive identity of the hunter and hunted. She is a moon goddess, she stands for the virgin, a self sufficient goddess who lives life on her own terms. She is related to all phases of female existence. She is part of our primitive, instictive nature, she is the midwife and protector of the divine child within.


So............ after finding about about each of them, I had to then create them as recognisable images, because the instructions from the client was for them all to be easily known from JUST their faces, since that was all he wanted me to depict. Mmm..... difficult.

But, after drawing out preliminary drawings, I could see that each one had their own personality. My decision to do the painting in oils was a good one, as it meant that I could make any subtle changes that were needed to show each goddess, and to pull them all together within the image, since it was about ALL of them, not one being any more prominent than another. And oils is easier to paint in to achieve that effect.

Doing the watercolour  practice painting ensured that the background pulled them all together, and I used that as the basis of the idea for my oil painting. Since then, I've been working on it, building up each face, pulling the whole lot together. Parts have gone really well, other parts have had to be worked at. Isis's teardrop is the most clever thing I've ever painted. It LOOKS like its standing out from the painting, it is exquisite in its simple perfection.

I've also incorporated earth, air, fire and water within the painting. They are as much part of the painting as the goddesses are.

There are some artistic tricks within the painting - the yellow paint around Kali is "Indian yellow" which I thought very apt! Isis is connected with lapis lazuli - otherwise known as cobalt blue - and that is what her face is painted in. Innana is connected with lions and her face is painted in a suitable lion colour.  Hecate is luminous, and favours offerings of garlic hence her face being the colours of garlic, and the number three is also associated with her so she has three white lines flowing away from her.

So now you know all that, you can tell who is who from the painting, can't you?

My job is done.

I just hope the client likes it!

Oh, and its title? "Goddesses of the divine feminine"


Postscipt: I've just seen the client and he's just seen the painting,  and he LOVVVES IT!!!!!! YAAAAYYY!!!!!

Creating magic and mystery

It's good to know when you're on the same wavelength as someone else. Particularly if they've commissioned a painting from you. Particularly when the subject matter is something as specific as Goddesses. Because just because I see them in a certain way, doesn't mean the client does! So, I was happy to arrange a "work in progress" meeting, just to check that we are in tune. He had come, ostentatiously, to view the first watercolour painting, to see how the pour-on technique had created  the back-ground. And when I explained how it had worked, and pointed out the special effects it makes, he was impressed and intrigued with the outcome. Then I asked him the "Big question".................... "Would you like to see the oil painting? It's not finished yet, but it is going well"...........

"Yes" he nodded, he certainly DID!!!

I had hidden it from his view when he arrived, but now I turned it around for him to see. And got the reaction I expected and had hoped for - he leant forward to it and went "Woooooooowwwwwww!"

"Yep, its loads better than the watercolour, isn't it!" 
He nodded in mute agreement, and quietly said "I KNEW I was right to ask YOU to do it".

We stood and looked at it, as I pointed out each Goddess and my interpretaion of her and the reasons behind it. He nodded again, then said "And you've got the cardinal elements in it too". "The what?" I asked in puzzlement as I looked at the painting and wondered what it was I'd painted without even knowing it. "Earth, air, fire and water" he explained. "Ah" I said, and looked at the painting again, and realised he was right!  I had, and I hadn't even known I'd done it! That's what I love about these sort of pictures, when the magic happens, and evolves within the painting, and others see things that I haven't planned, but it adds so much MORE to the painting this serendipity.

I explained about the idea of putting the diamonds within the painting, but said that I wasn't sure they were needed now, as in a way it might be "gilding the lily" - but I would be guided by his thoughts on it. His first reaction was that he wasn't sure that they were needed, and then he grew more sure and said not to put them in. I nodded quietly, and agreed with him that each goddess is beautiful already, she doesn't need anything else to add to it.  He was sure about one thing though, straight away he said "Don't change Diana!!!" and I was in total agreement with him - I keep looking at her and she mesmerises me. She is virginal beauty, in natural state, and perfect as she is. He said she was "right" where she is, in the bottom right hand corner, and I agreed with him. I put her back there after fighting my original urge to move her away from there. So she stays.

The painting is starting to pull together, the colours of the background flowing around each goddess, creating power in the flow of light around them.

It's not finished yet, but its getting there. The client is happy, and I am happy. The magic is forming....

On Creativity

I was chatting with an artist friend and her boyfriend the other day about life, art, and creativity (as you do!). And it always surprises me to hear that other people struggle to be creative a lot of the time. It's strange to hear because I know I am creative ALL of the time. The only thing stopping me creating artwork all day every day is "life" - the usual things that we do that constitute life and what we do with it.

Her boyfriend is a little musical (as in being musical, not that he IS a musical in itself, that would be weird!! Funny idea though...........He'd keep bursting into song at odd moments of making a cup of tea or going to the bathroom!) and he said that even if he was left to compose music all day for as long as he wanted to, he'd still get fed up of it after a couple of days, as his creativity would have run out by then. This comment interested me, because I think I could paint each day for the next fifty years and not get tired of it. And I'd never run out of subject matter, because even the most mundane subjects can be made to look interesting. I looked around the bar room and realised I could paint loads of things there, even if it's only a coat hanging on a hat stand, the way the light catches a drink in a glass, the gleam of brass, the spirit bottles against the bar mirror, and that's before I even got to surreal or abstract ideas that the room could give me. EVERYTHING can be painted and be made to look interesting. And as an artist I will never feel that I have learnt all there is to know about art, and I know an awful lot already. It's such a vast subject, and we're always learning from it. I could paint the sky every day and do a different painting each time - well I certainly could in this country with its ever changing scudding clouds!

So today I went in search of something creative to add to the Goddess oil painting that I'm currently working on. Some "magic" to add to it. I had the basic idea of what I wanted and went to the appropriate shop to look for .........stars. Heavenly stars. Shining brightly in the universe amongst the Goddesses. Glinting in the depths of the midnight dark velvety sky catching the light and flashing it back. Stars. Mmm....... in a .........crystal shop. But, do you know what? They weren't called "stars" in the shop. Nor were they called "crystals". No. they were called something even more magical................

They were called............................"diamonds"..........

Now, how magical is that? How wonderful! They'll shine like stars and are SO appropriate for the painting. And since they are for a spiritual painting, I've bought eleven. That being the special  number depicting a gateway to magical places................

Here she is!

Here it is - the unveiling, at long last! You've waited a long time to see her, but I wanted her to be right before I showed her to you.

As I said recently, I wasn't happy with the original acrylic painting that I did a couple of years ago. It just wasn't "right" somehow although I couldn't work out the reason why until only a few weeks ago, it was just an undefined feeling about it. So, I decided I had to change it because I couldn't live with it in the state it was in! The decision was made - it needed to be overpainted in oils. Big decision, but certainly the RIGHT one, because as you can see in the new painting, it is SOOOOOOOO much better for that change! I've put both paintings here so that you can see the difference, and even I am amazed at the difference in the two paintings of the same subject matter. Whereas the acrylic painting is harsh and has sharp colours and tones, the oil painting is just so much softer both in colour and tone, and in blending the paint. The woman blends into the background better, and is so more softly sensual for being in oils. She oozes sensuality for me now. Her skin colour and tone is far more realistic. Her breast has more weight and shape to it, the nipple is more the focal point and is aching to be caressed, I love the line down her spine and particularly I love the soft shadow at the top of the crack of her bum. Her buttocks are round and inviting, and I ADORE the lost and found edges of her right arm, the way it merges in the soft light of the background and disappears behind that gorgeous curve of her back. I much prefer her hair in this picture, its more realistic, and the way you can JUST see her fingers under the hair as she runs her fingers appealingly through it. And you probably can't see from this photo but there are subtle fine splatters of white paint around her bum, her hair, and her right arm, so the viewer is aware that there is a little movement there, she's just shifting slightly on her legs which has moved her bum abit, so then you think well what's that right hand doing, the one you can't see fully. What's she up to? And is that why she's moved her bum, shifting her weight on her folded legs. Is that ........why................?

And that is one of the reasons I've renamed the painting too. It was originally called "Without a care" because the thought was the woman in the painting was "carefree" but now it's not enough of a title. I wanted a different one, a better one, one that summed up her voluptuous temptress pose and after a while I came up with the new title - it's "Naked desire" and I much prefer it as it's far more ambiguous!

Well, I for one think she's gorgeous (but then I'm biased!!) ........what do you think?