And finally...

Puck...with my Fox mask.

I'm still not 100% happy with this one, but I think it's mostly to do with the fact that Puck is such a rich and many layered character, with so many emanations from myth, folklore, pre-christian religions and so forth, that I could spend the rest of my life painting versions of him and still not get it.  He is, for me, also the Green Jack, who is the Green Man, and Herne/Cernunnos, and Robin Goodfellow, and probably Robin Hood, and Pan, and Loki, and many others too.  So not an easy chap to define.  But then, I don't really want to define him...that would diminish him.  I like his mutability, his changeability.  That's how he adapts and survives...even now.  He's still out there, I'm convinced of it.  I certainly hope so.

Oberon, King of Faery.

Well, I started working on Puck, but being the Trickster and Shapeshifter that he is, he refused to be pinned down.  So I left him alone to have a think about it (he AND I!) and went on with Oberon.  Hopefully he will be a little more contrite and co-operative now, and let me get on and finish his portrait, otherwise he won't get to hang in the gallery next to Titania.

So here is Oberon.  Looking a little alarming perhaps, but then, the King of Faery is no sweet little thing with glittery wings.  Faeries are not to be trifled with, and I've always thought Oberon had a bit of a dangerous streak (it's a pretty mean trick he plays on Titania) and he's always seemed to me to be the sort of faery you DON'T want to get on the wrong side of!  So here he is imagined as a kind of night faery, with crow feathers and skull, and eyes that can look right through you.  I THINK he's finished, but as with Titania, I'm still unsure whether or not to add some text down the side as I did for the Green Jack.  I rather like them as they are, so I might not.

Right, time to wrestle with Puck and try to get him to stand still so I can get a good look at him!

First painting for 2013...

I've been doing my usual trick, painting in my head instead of on paper or canvas.  It's fine for a while, tossing ideas around, mentally turning things around about to see how they look from different angles, or in different styles/media.  But ultimately there's no substitute for getting down to business and starting.  Because it's only then that the real magic starts, new ideas/directions appear, paths to take that you might never have discovered if you just kept going over the same ground in your head.  But still, I keep doing it and then find that actually starting gets harder and harder.  I have a little exhibition booked for late April, and though I have some work, I need to do more for it.  So I've been turning my brain in knots thinking about all manner of overly ambitious and complex possibilities, when there really isn't time for that, and what I really need to do it just get started on something, anything really, to start the year off and get back into the creative flow.  So today I stopped thinking and started doing.  This is the result.  Titania.  With gum (Eucalypt) leaves!  Acrylic, graphite and pencil on 20cm x 20cm canvas.  Though I don't think she's quite finished yet.  I might add a quote from the play down the side.

I recently saw another production of Midsummer Night's Dream that was rather lovely.  I've lost count of how many I've seen over the years, I think it's my favourite of Shakespeare's plays.  One of the most memorable was way back in 1990, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson's Renaissance Theatre production in London.  Wonderful stuff!  So I think there will be a Puck (though of course, the Green Jack is another version of Puck), and possibly an Oberon too.

And for an excellent blog post on the need to stop thinking about painting, or writing, or whatever, and get on to doing, check out Terri Windling's latest blog post On Beginnings.

Birthdays, goblins, and W.I.Ps...

I've committed myself to doing a new, large painting for an art award/exhibition coming up in a couple weeks.  It's at least a year since I last did something big, and it's a scary prospect, so I decided the best way to get myself to stop procrastinating was to provide a deadline.  So now I have one, Friday week!  I've decided to do something using the same technique I used for the 'Green Jack', a pencil sketch on canvas overlaid with acrylic colours.  The 'Green Jack' was the first piece I've done using that method, and it was only 20cm x 20cm...this one is going to be 91cm x 91cms.  So I'm a little apprehensive about how I'm going to go about it, but I know without a deadline I'd never give it a go at all.

So I've entered a painting that doesn't exist yet, called "Beauty Remembers".  If the title sounds familiar,  you might remember the poem I wrote last year.  I've had an image in my mind for a while now, so it's as good a time as any to get cracking on it.  I want to incorporate the text of the poem into the painting, and I've been scribbling some ideas.  So here's a peak at my sketch/ideas/general ranting/notebook.

And as my smallest munchkin had her birthday during the school holidays, we delayed her party so her school friends could come along.  Several faeries and a couple of pirates turned up, and it seemed like a good time was had by all.

A Faery feast.

No, my munchkin isn't levitating, unless those wings are genuine.  A robust game of Musical Statues got everyone up on the dance floor (er, carpet)!

It was bucketing down for most of the morning, but luckily the rain held off in the afternoon long enough for little people to head outside and go Goblin hunting, with prizes for the most goblins rounded up (because as I explained, my garden was over-run with goblins and they're a terrible pest, scaring the birds away and teasing poor Flynn by pulling her tail and biting her nose).  The goblins were simply pictures purloined from the web (late the previous night...it was a last minute brainwave!), printed in black and white, cut out (very roughly) and stuck onto pop-sticks and pegs, then stuck in the ground or clipped to trees and bushes.  Beloved hid them all in the garden and I gave him strict instructions to remember to think like a 4 foot tall and rather over excited 7 year old (sometimes he forgets everyone else isn't as tall as he is)...and they found them all within 5 minutes!

So...here's a goblin for you (this is one of mine)!  I think though, that he really isn't ugly enough.  An extreme makeUNDER required perhaps!?

"The Green Jack" featured in this lovely treasury!

My 'Green Jack' has popped up in a lovely Etsy treasury Have You Seen the Green Man? along with some other beautiful items.  The treasury was created by Dante at Suntribe Designs, who makes the most gorgeous jewellery...the sort of thing I can just imagine Boudicca, or perhaps Helen of Troy wearing.  I've got my eye on some earrings in there!

I really should be painting...

Terribly typical of me, I'm flat out painting 2 paintings for an art competition, and entry forms need to be posted tomorrow morning (to arrive by Friday afternoon) and, most inconveniently I must say, they want to see images of the paintings entered by Friday as well.  I say inconvenient because my usual modus operandi is to put in the entry form THEN paint the painting.  I HAVE mentioned I'm terminally disorganised before, haven't I?!  So I really shouldn't be sitting here, but I do like to come up for air occasionally and read my favourite blogs.  I've also mentioned I'm a terrible procrastinator, haven't I?!  So I haven't anything new to show, but if all goes well, I will by Friday.  In the meantime, I'll pin up some pictures of old works to brighten this post up a little.

I've posted previously about the small book I made to go with this set of paintings, but haven't actually posted the paintings before, so here they are.  'The Four Elements', all completed in 2007.  They were a difficult bunch, very headstrong with VERY definite ideas about how they wished to be depicted.  'Air' particularly gave me a lot of trouble, and I repainted large sections a couple of times.  'Earth' just turned out completely different to how I intended her to, but after the struggle with 'Air' I figured it was best to let her decide.  Worked well, I think.  I'll probably put these in my Etsy shop as prints sometime soon.  The originals were all bought by one lovely lady, who saved up and paid them off in installments.

That's a lot of breasts all lined up!

And, as I'm feeling in a green mood at the moment...a small green man mask.

The pic on the left is a page from my journal, and you can just see the edge of a painting I've stuck in by Terri Windling.  An inspirational painting for me, of a Green Woman, about keeping our connections to the wild (both outside and inside of us) open and free.  You can see the beautiful original (and many more of her beautiful and full-of-magic paintings) at her website here.

Better get back to painting...hopefully my experimental glazes will have dried enough for the next layer!

The 'Green Jack' is available as a print!

In case you'd like your very own Green Man, they are now available as A4 and A5 prints in my Etsy shop.  They will look like this (really just an excuse for another pic of him!), with a white border to allow for framing.  Printed on heavy quality (251gsm) semi-gloss Epson paper.

The original has been packaged up and sent off for an exhibition/competition, so we shall see if he catches someone's eye.  I've gotten rather attached to him now though, and almost hope he doesn't!

The 'Green Jack'...or maybe Nigel...or Barry........

So here he is now, with the left side darkened and text added, and some face paint/tattoo/tribal marking type stuff happening, just giving the vague hint of antlers...because for me the Green Man is also Herne the Hunter.  I THINK he's finished, but am just wondering now whether it could do with another line of text to balance better?  But no, I think that's just me never being satisfied.  Beloved Other Half says this is a little different for me, a looser style, and he likes it.  On the whole, I think the experiment went very well, and I'm looking forward to trying more of these pencil/acrylic on canvas combos...maybe something a little bigger next time (this one is only 20cm x 20cms) so that I can give that 'looser style' free reign.

And something to listen to while you're looking at the pic!
Just had a quick surf to find the lyrics, and here they are, along with a nice explanation of how the song came about and guitar tabs too (for when I've had a LOT more lessons!)

The Green Jack...

Other-Half asked this morning, "So why 'Jack'?  Why not...'Graham'?"

But I'm having a hard time imagining him with the same devilish magic if he was called the 'Green Graham'!

The 'Green Jack'...is green!

Just a quick post, as it's Sunday and I'm doing half a dozen things at once (washing to put out and more to do as it's sunny, dyeing a skirt in onion skins, and cleaning the bath...not to mention finishing this painting!)

Here's the Green Jack as he was last night after the acrylic colour was applied.

And here he is this morning after some refining around the eyes and extra shading, and details added to the oak leaves.

The initial idea was to add some text, but I've got to one of those annoying WIIFIUSs (the 'what if I **** it up stage') which makes me scared to take the next step in case I ruin it.  I was intending to make it darker down the left side and add some fine white handwriting in pen and ink, but I'm not sure.  I was also wondering about adding some tattoo like markings on his face.  Hmmm, decisions, decisions!

Thank you too for your comments about the poem, it's very encouraging.  And if anyone doesn't like it, or doesn't think it works, please remember I'm just as happy to have those comments as well, it's all about learning to be better, so constructive criticism is always appreciated as well...though it IS lovely to have lots of nice comments!  Must go...washing to be done!

A poem for Beauty and her beast...and the 'Green Jack"

The "Green Jack" so far.  Pencil straight onto canvas.  Acrylic washes to go over, more pics soon.

I wrote this poem about Beauty and the Beast for this competition at Enchanted Conversation.  Please read it first, and then the info, because I want to know if it makes any sense without a lengthy explanation (which kind of defeats the purpose a bit).

BEAUTY REMEMBERS   

It is our season, Wolfskin

of frost and snow.

They would leave us alone.

Remember?

The children snow-tumbled in their winter coats and

       did not yet know the word ‘accursed’.

My children.

My heart’s blood.

These long years without you my one respite from pain is this.

You did not live to see our sons

forsake their honest pelts

       for the bloodied skins of slaughtered kin.

The wild in their eyes has dulled and only watchful fear remains.

Wolfheart.

I dream I run beside you barefoot.

You taught me to run

       to laugh

       to howl the moon down.

To Live.

You taught me how to snarl and fight.

I have needed that these past years.

And to think they pitied me once.

Outside is the smell of snow falling

       your den brothers calling in the low hills.

I ache to fill my lungs

with bright cold air.

But the priests have barred the window,

filled the room with choking incense,

and I am too weak to fight them now.

Our whispering sons grey shadows in the cloying heat

       and I hear the word “repent”.

Repent?

As if I would one day regret.

You gave me back my voice, my body, my rage, my self.

These things no woman owned.

Asked nothing but compassion in return.

But love is a wild thing

       it grows where it pleases

       not in neatly ploughed rows.

I loved a wild thing and found my own wild soul.

Let them mutter their prayers, Wildheart

I will not repent.

This charade of bell, book and candle will

be done soon enough.

The curtains drawn around my bed

       the candles snuffed.

As my sons stand, relief belies their down-bowed heads.

And the priests cross themselves at the smile on my mouth.

I will not be here.

I will be running

       barefoot in the low hills.

Your soft soundless feet padding beside me

       in the frozen dawn.

If you checked out the link, you'll know the theme was 'Beauty and the Beast, the 50th Wedding Anniversary:  How did the marriage turn out?"  My poem is a little melancholy, imagining Beauty lying on her deathbed surrounded not by friends, but people trying to get her to repent her years spent with the Beast.  I can imagine that her marriage to the Beast was not the unforgivable sin, but rather her love for him.  If she had remained the 'poor woman married to a monster', stayed the compliant wife, and martyr to 'good womanhood' who could be held up as a convenient example of how a woman should behave (ie. obedient to her husband no matter how awful he is), she would have been declared a saint.  But she fell in love with the Beast and learnt to be wild and willful.  Unacceptable to her society.  True to form, I had the idea floating around in my head for several days, but didn't get around to actually trying to write it until the last minute, and send it off rather rough and unpolished.  It didn't make the grade, but I still like the idea and think it's worth tinkering with a bit more.  What do you think?  Does it make sense without all the explanation?  Does it convey her love for the wild man she's lost and her disdain for the priests and her disappointing sons?

As for the "Green Jack", he's looking disturbingly like Colin Farrell which is a) annoying because I don't WANT him to, and b) weird because I didn't use Colin Farrell as a reference!  But I've put the acrylic washes/glazes on now (pics tomorrow) and he doesn't look quite so much like him as he did just in the pencil.  The experiment seems to be working ok, except you have to be careful with the pencil onto the canvas and use a really light hand, as it goes on quite dark and it's harder to get the subtlety in shading that you can get on paper.  After the pencil, I gave it a couple of very light coats of spray varnish just to stop the pencil from smudging.  Seemed to work quite well, and the acrylic colour went over the varnish fine, so I think the technique has promise.  Needs some more exploration I think.