Painting Evolution

I meant to include this post when I did my little art show a few weeks back. I recorded the various steps from conception to completion, in order to showcase the natural evolution of a painting. Most of my paintings flow very organically. The final product is not always what I had intended to create in the beginning. It's almost always a surprise. 


In this case, I knew that my friend Amanda was expecting her second child soon, so I dedicated my next canvas to her. (Actually, she is due any day now. I was supposed to have a phone date with her yesterday, and she was MIA n' never called back, so who knows...? She might be nursing her newborn as I type.)


Anyhow, as I thought about Amanda, I felt that a painting that reflected "family" would be a good choice. Originally I thought that perhaps I'd paint a big tree in the center - not unlike a family tree. Then around the circumference I'd paint a quote like, "A family is a circle of love" - which is on a candleholder my mom gave me...


But I wasn't too sure about that quote. I thought I'd do a little research to see what else I could find. Maybe something about having children or being a parent... That's when I came across the quote, "There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings." ~ Hodding Carter


I liked that.  It evoked a nice image. But it was long...


So I decided to do a search for other parent quotes that had both the words, "roots" and "wings" in them - but one that was shorter. I was in luck. "Good parents give their children roots and wings." ~Jonas Salk


I wrote down the quotes in my sketchbook and then started to take a stab at drawing some simple wings. Once I got an idea of how I wanted to do my wings, I connected them to some stylized roots.


This is what the brainstorming/sketch process looked like: 

The almost celtic looking roots with the abstract wings really struck a chord with me. I thought it would make a cool tattoo. 


Did I ever tell you that I once owned a tattoo gun? 


I bought it off eBay. It was hot pink with a black skull on the side. Super groovy. Alas, I never graduated past tattooing grapefruit. Just as I was about to move out west, I was offered the opportunity to apprentice for someone. But I moved anyway and never tattooed another grapefruit again. 


Instead I eventually passed the gun on to an incredibly talented person I met here in Kelowna. He wanted nothing more than to be a tattoo artist...  and my gun was just going to waste in a box. I let him have it, and it didn't take long for him to make it a full-time career. He's now a popular tattoo artist in Vancouver. 


But I digress...


Anyhow, when I looked at the design, it made me think more about my friend Janet than Amanda. Amanda is country kitchen, whereas Janet is funky tattoos. 


Then I remembered that Janet had once said, "Some people are born with wings. I was born with roots." in regards to her never moving from our hometown. Gosh, even the quote I chose is more Janet than Amanda. Hmm...  and Janet's birthday is in March. 


Oh well... I would give it some thought as I sketched everything out to see how it'd look in colour:

At this point, I felt that my design was almost starting to take on the shape of an abstract angel... and Janet collects angels. A decision had been made. I will have to pass this painting along to Janet. Amanda will have to wait. (Not that she even had any idea in the first place...)


Now had come the time to put paint brush to canvas. I already knew that the background would be swirly, but I didn't want it to compete with the design. I decided that I wanted to keep it very subtle, so I chose yellow. 


You might remember back in February how I sang the praises of my new paintbrush Round 6.  Well, this is what I was painting at that time:

It took me two painting sessions to finish the background. Session one, above. Session two, below:

On the third session, I sketched the design onto the canvas. I didn't realize that it was slightly off centre until I had almost finished it. Argh.... Where's the blasted Undo button?!

Erasing pencil marks off paint is not very nice. First of all, it smudges. Secondly, given the swirly background I had already created, it would just be a bitch to paint over, matching each shade of yellow wherever the pencil line crossed. I hoped that when I painted my base for the design, maybe I could somehow balance it out a little better. Not so much:

In the fourth session, I decided that instead of a quote about wings and roots, I would balance out the image by including the Reiki symbols along the one side, as Janet is also a Reiki practitioner. 


There is actually quite a bit of controversy among practitioners whether or not the symbols should be shown to anyone who does not practice. (Even though non-Reiki people have no idea what they're for or how to use them.) Traditionalists believe that they are sacred symbols and should therefore only be passed from teacher to student, protected through memorization. Others believe that it really doesn't matter. Like the author Diane Stein, who came under harsh criticism when she published the symbols in a book. Both Janet n' I are of the same school of thought - It doesn't matter. So I knew she wouldn't be offended if I chose to include them in a work of art. (Besides, what else can I balance out that side with?!)


After painting the symbols, I started feeling that if this were to be a Reiki painting, then perhaps I should give that angel some chakra centres. So I included simple coloured spots to represent the seven chakras. The only one I chose to elaborate on was the sixth chakra, which is called the third eye, because I thought it would look appropriate.


And so there you have it. The final product:

Obviously not everyone's cuppa tea, but if it were, then I'd be giving it to Amanda instead of Janet, now wouldn't I? :)