Almost a month ago, I started an experiment.
I wanted to do a painting starting from a given reference but then only use it as a jumping off point with no expectation of where the journey would end. Each day I would sit down with it and just go with whatever struck my fancy.
To begin, I was inspired by an image that is part of Windows 10 library of images that appear rotationally on my lockscreen. It is of an iconic tree, in a lake near the mountains in New Zealand. I wasn't wedded to my rendering of it and that was tremendously freeing for me.
I started with charcoal and added colour with Inktense blocks on 12 x 16 Arches HP paper. The second day involved throwing a lot of gesso around as a veil, then adding back some random marks with charcoal. Some days I would work on it for only 15 minutes or so, other days there would be a lot more contemplation involved. I worked on it daily for about a week and then life intervened and my creative voice went quiet for a spell.
When I took it up again, I still had no idea where it would end up but distance told me it needed some life put into it and so I glazed the whole thing with green gold and that really seemed to bring things into focus. It still took a few more days but then suddenly and very quietly I knew it was finished. I've never felt more like an artist than I did in that exact moment.
I won't bore you with the in between and quite frankly ugly bits but here is the beginning and the end. I will definitely be doing this again.
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| "Underneath a Tree" mixed media on 12 x 16 HP paper (C) Susan Langdon aka Nukiart |
