This
painting was generated by creating a still life which was to reflect the style
of an artist with whom we were assigned. The artist's style needed to be
incorporated into the work, as well as a signature. In this process, I was
fortunate that the artist I was given loved flowers and textures, and painted
for joy and an expression to value life. This was philosophically in alignment
with my own values, so it was easy for me to locate items from my home to use in
the still life. A favored orange mug, with flowers around the color (though I
opted to omit that design element given the busy-ness of the whole); some silk
irises in a crystal vase (the glass was a bit intimidating, but I was pleased to
learn how to create it); a fabric which was used in an office I'd worked in the
past to brighten the space and bring hope to a dreary space; a metal sculpture
of a simple flower whose connection to the "divine" in the universe gave me hope
when I thought my life would never change; a plastic, textured with ridges,
brought texture and a white background on which to highlight the copied presence
of the artist's shift - turned sideways to mimic a landscape. The mug was placed
on a board that raised its ground to the height of the plastic, while another
board offered a place on which to stand the vase, adding levels and light
differences.To those who may believe that art is a "simple" thing and "easy to do", I can assure you the enormous humility and respect I gained for this field in creating this piece. The construction and preparation of the canvas alone took me about 9 hours. I also managed to make about every error possible, so learned innumerable tricks and strategies for how to repair and/or prevent difficulties in creating a canvas. Scraps were used to create odd shapes on which I continue to paint, an adventure in recycling and preventing waste.
Once our still life was made, our instructor showed us how to create a base on the canvas and then build the depth, texture and layers that would recapture the 3-dimensional still life in 2-dimensional form. I easily put in over 20 hours a week across six plus weeks outside of our three hour class to complete this piece. The precision and detailed work from which my background stemmed melded with the still life in a way that worked for me and for the final result, I believe. Even so, I was more than thrilled to discover in our next project that painting could be about discovery and play, large movements and unknown results... just to see what might happen.
