Music and movement

I don't like to rush the design stage of a painting. Having said that by the time its come to me, its quite easy to sketch some ideas out to see how they work, and then adjust the colours or tones accordingly to make the painting better in as many ways that I can. But the basic concept will usually remain the same from the original thoughts.

The painting I'm working on at the moment, is the oil painting commission of the Royal Crescent at Bath, with various people, alive and dead, within the picture. The painting won't be fully representational, but also it won't be fully abstract either, but an amalgam of them both. But it will also have more of a surreality to it as well, in that the wind that is blowing around the people within the picture comes from the two much beloved people within the clouds of the sky. That is the concept. It took three full days last week for me to get to the point of being happy with it, along with a couple of long phone calls with the clients, in Bath, to agree the design and make any adjustments accordingly. I know the days were intense, because I woke a couple of times in the night (a rarity!) with ideas rushing around my head, and thoughts for the planning stage fresh and running free.

The reason it was done that way, was because the clients are going on holiday for a fortnight, and I didn't want to have to put the painting on hold whilst I awaited for their return. By having three very intense days of designing it, it means that it has freed me more for the week ahead and being able to plan the colours at my leisure. When I asked the client what colour palette he wanted - the reply was that he'd sent me photos of the room, so I could see where the painting was going to hang, and since I was the expert, and he'd already given me the brief, he wanted to leave me to make the final decisions and didn't want to interfere with those decisions, giving me free rein.

So, after emailing him the first design and then hearing his thoughts on it, adjusting the second design accordingly the next day and emailing him that drawing with the new changes, he loves it! And I've got the go ahead! Yay!

That always makes me happy, when it's all positive and upbeat.

The client said "That didn't take long, did it?" and I smiled! But he was right, and more to the point, he was happy. And that is what I'm aiming for, always!

So, now, I can think of the colours. I know to a degree what they will be - cream, brown, plum, black, red, and silver. And I know the silver will be the wind, blowing diagonally across the painting, full of love, and connecting the people, but also with a power, a spiritual power, as well as a physical one.  I don't think at the moment that anything else in the picture needs to be silver, as that will detract from the wind and that is one of the most important aspects of the painting. So, the next stage will be working out the layout of colours for dramatic effect. As the painting certainly will be dramatic, and it also needs to stand proud from the heavy and dark Georgian style wallpaper that it will hang against.

Then, I can start painting it, properly.

But yesterday, I did something that although not obviously connected with the painting, it is something that will affect it, totally and absolutely. Fully, and instantly.

It was my choice of music, for my iPod.

Loud, rocking, with good rhythm, and the stuff that instantly fires me up!!!!!

Four hundred and blustery

Four hundred.

Four hundred with this one.

Blog posts that is, that I've written since I started in March 2007. Its almost the anniversary of that coming up soon too, and I still love it as much now as I did then. Perhaps more so, because more people comment on it in real life.

So, what am I going to talk about today?

Wind.

I was at an art meeting last night for one of the art groups I'm a member of. And we'd discussed various things to do with forthcoming exhibitions, finding new venues, new members wanting to join, the usual stuff of artist groups. And we'd got to the point towards the end of the meeting when other people were discussing subjects that didn't really relate to anything that I needed to put any input into, and my mind wandered off.......as it does to us all when we have free moments.....

The woman opposite me, who is someone who is used to me smiling at her and making funny comments, looked over at me, and commented on how serious I looked, and I said quietly "I'm thinking".......

I didn't have chance to tell her later on what I was thinking of, though.
And she'd have probably thought it very odd if I had!

It was wind.

Not wind as in the embarrassing trapped body sort of wind, wind as it weather.
And more to the point, how I was going to capture it within the painting I'm working on at the moment.

Because part of the brief for the landscape painting is that it is Autumn, and there are leaves blowing, and that there is wind.

Which is fine, because that's easy enough, to paint blowing leaves to emulate wind. But, it's far more than that, because this painting is abstract. So, that makes it more difficult to depict. Because I need to show the wind, within the paint. But, last night, whilst thinking, I think I may have found a way of doing it! A way that makes me happy that I've got it right, and that it will work as a concept.

And it involves black paint, and also silver paint.

And just to excite me even more, the art supplies that I ordered last weekend arrived this morning with a friendly van driver. He brought me a large canvas to work on, and some paint...various colours of oil paint....... some of it............ in silver!