“Side by Side” – the painting

 “Side by Side“, 30″ x 40”, mixed media (acrylics, granular gel, light molding paste, glass beads, acrylic paints) on gallery-stretched canvas.   Go to my online shop for the Original and Prints.

Note: the photo does not show the reflective nature of some of the colours – this painting shimmers live and looks different from different angles.

The Final Day (almost):

What a blissful day on Sunday – I had decided to take a complete day off B-School to paint (and sing) – and that’s just what I did. I didn’t even check our 2 B-School Facebook Groups (they do get addictive…).

I started very early in the morning with Kirtan music (Sanskrit chanting) and switched to 50s and 60s music after lunch. I never did get around to taking my shower (not a common phenomenon!)…

After a late afternoon walk with a friend in Bowring Park (where I delighted in the endless parade of dogs of all kinds and sizes) and a bowl of healthy mung bean stew, I headed back to the studio and kept working late into the evening.

When I saw number 444 on my camera, however, I understood my guides were telling me it was enough for one day – it was already past 10pm and I’m usually in bed at 9. Plus, I was starting to get annoyed with myself – not a space to paint in.

The next morning, I woke up to the blizzard outside and my morning meeting cancelled, so I continued working on my painting for a little while before wiring and varnishing it.

The Creative Process:

I have had such an amazing time with this painting since the last Studio Sneak Peek. I invite you to join me in that creative process today. If you’ve missed the previous 2 posts and want to experience the progression from the start, you can access 1) “Love, Beauty & Mystery” by clicking here and 2) “Yinning and Yanning” here.

After finishing work on the couple, including the dots following the hairlines,

I continued working on the outer rings.  You’ll see the progression here – notice that I painted white under the orange because I wanted my orange to be nice and bright. It would have been much darker and muted if I had painted on top of other colours.  Also, I didn’t want to use the fluorescent orange I had speckled the base with because fluorescent paints aren’t lightfast. I may use UV resistant varnish, but I haven’t tested whether that would be enough to stop these accents from dimming with time.

I like to use the highest grade of professional acrylic paints available for a reason.  I’m reminded of the importance of that each time I visit my parents and see one of the faded paintings I made in the early 90s. It’s still beautiful, but some of the colours have disappeared. I’ve learned a lot since then.

Then I dove into Zentangles® in the corners.  I’ll confess, I was listening to one of the audio books for B-School that day and while my left brain was busy with that, my right brain got lost in the meditative trance of pattern making.  I had originally thought of just making a small pattern with ample space around the circle and around the edges, but as you can see, I got carried away and went all the way from the corner to the circle.

With dark against dark the circle lost its power. No worries. There are no mistakes in intuitive painting.  So out came the pearl and white.  I liked that and decided to balance the results with patterns in the opposite corner, but not as heavily there.

Great!  After looking at it for a while, I decided to grace the couple with a halo.  This representation of unconditional love naturally glowed. 🙂  I used zinc white for this because, unlike Titanium White, it’s transparent.  I went around the circle twice before adding rays of Titanium white lines.  Remember, you can click on an image to see it larger.

I then decided to empower the painting with one of the sacred sigils I developed in Vienna (learn how in a previous post).

How many times have I said there are no mistakes in intuitive painting?  Well, there aren’t.  After spending the afternoon working on these symbols (and even signing it), I realized that they pulled the eye in all directions.  The painting was much better (visually speaking) without them.  Just look at these side by side.  Do you see what I mean?

So I spent the whole evening starting the process over in those two corners- warm colour marks, followed by cool colour marks, followed by a gold glaze to unify.  Here’s where I understood advice I once heard – take notes.  I couldn’t tell which of my 3 golds I had used in the previous glaze…

It wasn’t quite right – too orangy and too flat.  I compared it to my early shots and much preferred it before.  So more mark-making to bring some of the magentas in and another couple of glazes – violets and golds (2 kinds).  In total, there are about 10 layers of paint on top of those two sigils, but if you look very carefully at the live painting, you can still see their texture – wonderful! Their energy is still there, even if their visual representation has been covered up.

What this last part process reminded me, however, is that it’s no use wanting to go back in time and try to recreated the exact same results.  Attaching to the way things were only brings misery (isn’t that so true in relationships as well?).

The painting has evolved. It’s different – it’s not really a case of better or worse. It just is – and I love it!

What about you?  Does this painting or process speak to you? How? Feel free to comment below.