This image wasn't done for a book, but was one of those things I do for pleasure, when I "cut loose". It's just fun to try new ideas out that nobody has to see, - unless it turns out well! And believe me, there a plenty on the cutting room floor, as they say in the movie biz. So I guess I like how this came out. It really started with a face from a shoot I did several years ago. I was having Irina twirl in the wind, wearing dress, a long cloak and a sword! She was playing with different expressions of fierceness and something about this frame struck me as intense and beautiful.
I added lots of hair and started playing with the background, which was a swirly fantasy scape. It didn't work. It got put in a folder,where it sat for maybe three years till I retrieved it. This time I had a better idea of where I wanted it to go, perhaps as a result of something I'd figured out in that time.
That is one of the interesting things about working creatively, ideas evolve. Often an idea is hatched, but the knowledge or experience isn't ther to make it work. The artist, Charles Burchfield went bask to little sketches he'd done 20-30 year earlier and glued them down in the middle of large watecolor paper and just elaborated on the images outside of the small original rectangle. He did some of his best paintings like that. Anyone who is not familiar with his work should have a look.He was a truly unique painter and viataly in touch with nature and with expressing emotion. He also managed to convey sounds in his paintings!
Wow, that was a tangent! All I was trying to say was to hang on to those ideas you have an maybe later you'll know what to do with them!
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6 comments:
It's a stunning picture. I especially like the colors you used in the celtic knot design in the background. Makes me wish I could paint.:-) You are very talented.
Thanks, Kathy!
Wow. What are you going to do with the picture now? It's really cool.
You are right about ideas evolving. I think it drives my computer engineer husband crazy the way my brain's always working forward, always reaching for the next idea, even when I'm not aware of it.
Hi Susan, I'm glad you asked. I'm working on producing limited edition prints of some of my work. I think it'll be a couple of different sizes, to fit people's budgets and decor. I'll announce it when I get the details straight. Thanks, for you comment!
It's the same way with writing. I have scraps of paper with ideas and stacks of partial short stories/novels that I've come back to and realized I could flesh out now. In fact I did that with a romance I'd started in 2004. I finished it this summer. So when writers say it took them x amount of years to write a book, thats including time the story sat in a file or the writer mulled it over in his/her head.
I love the brilliant colors of this piece.
Hey, Sally! Thanks for posting! It seems we have to mull stuff over and then come back to it. Maybe this means we've learned something in the meantime!
JG
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