I started the next painting, called ‘boom’. It’s from a black and white photograph of an atomic explosion I saw on-line. I just liked the shapes.
Boom and crash shiver the house,
shaking the walls and canting the paintings
just a little off-kilter.
I swim up the chimney and take a breath,
wrapped in the persistent dreams
of tattered flags from unknown countries,
long forgotten in the inundation.
the patchwork animal #758 v:14 September 2020
Two layers so far. I like the shape on the far right.
The original photograph. I was going to do it in black and white and grey, just like the photo, then I thought, what if I added just a little bit of colour…and then this happened.
The day before. Some of the basic shapes done with a larger brush than usual.
I was up until 3 working on the painting. I like some parts more than others, so I’ll keep painting until I like all of them.
And now for something completely different. I decided to go back to my original idea of a black and white image, with some colour. I thought it was getting out of hand with all the colour. I like this better, so far. It looks more like a cloud now. Not sure about the second area of pink and white. I’ll finish painting it and see if I like it. If not, it’s only paint, I can paint over it. This is why things take so long sometimes. I try something, and it doesn’t work out. For some reason, it’s the simpler shapes that give me a hard time. I did a painting of a peach that caused me the same problems, but then, the next painting of four peaches went smoothly. I don’t know why. This could end up being the same thing. I hope not. I really like parts of it. There’s a weird thing in the bottom left hand side I like. It was an experiment with some crackle paint, and it worked, so I kept it. I’m thinking it’s the exhaust from a rocket, to go with the boom cloud.
A closer view of the right hand side. It looks more like a cloud now. I like the shape beneath it too. I’m going to try not to get carried away with the colour this time…
Layer 7 of 20… Now I have to paint lighter grey and white areas onto the dark grey. I hope I like this. I like the black and white area to the right a lot more now. I doesn’t look so much like a fried egg anymore.
What a difference a day makes…painted some parts out, and I like it better. Still a long way from right, but I like more of it now.
Waaaaaiiiiitttt a minute….do I actually like this now? Really? How many layers did it take?
A closer look at the bottom of the painting. I’m repainting the orange/pink shape in shades of grey, (only 49), and I’m changing the circle things to red. Man, I tell you. 20 more hours ought to do it.
I stayed up later than I wanted to, but I was trying to do all the grey in the background. Now I can paint over the pink/orange bit in the middle. I really love the pink and white striped cloud thing at the top. I’m going to try to keep it. I still have a long way to go. I wrote a poem called ‘I’ve seen the heart of suns’, the word ‘boom’ appears twice, so I’m going to use one of them for this painting. I haven’t decided which one yet. Or maybe I will use another verse from another poem. It appears several times in previous works.
And…. fade to black. Add some flames. Recalculate. Hmmmmm…. I think I like it.
More work on the background and the flames. The top needs more work, it’s too dark. I ended up painting out the stripey cloud shape, even though I really liked it. I need to make a stencil of the word ‘boom’ with my Cricut. It doesn’t need to be too big. I’ll probably do it in a dark grey on the black background. There isn’t room to do the whole verse. There is another image I like so I might do another one.
I added more dots to the painting, and two swirls. It still doesn’t feel right. It needs to have a bit more light grey in the body of the cloud. The tones are too muted. I added a little gold to the flames, which doesn’t show in the photograph. I haven’t done the text yet.
O.k. so, what happened was… I still didn’t like it, so I painted the white ‘cells’ on top of the previous layer, then painted the insides of them grey, now I’m repainting patterns into them. This could take a while. I’m also fading the white to grey and dark grey at the edges, which works. I’ve stopped painting for a little while, so I can make a curtain for my kitchen. It takes over my whole studio table, so I can’t do both at the same time. Oh, for a barn/studio with lots of tables…
Up late, as usual. The top part still needs more work, but it’s getting there, wherever ‘there’ is… It kind of looks like a night sky on the left hand side, where it’s dark.