A Quick Peek At The Genesis Of A Painting

Of course it's my own, because those are the only ones I know from beginning to end and what the thought processes were.  Some of you have stated interest in the process, so here goes.  I hope it's interesting and not too inside baseball.

At first, in my mind's eye, I was seeing a young woman seated in the dark facing right.  Her face and hands were painted in normal tones, but her gown was a dark absence, full of stars.

When I began working she turned around and faced the viewer.  She was roughed in with a large greenish shape beside her.  I was experimenting with using a makeup sponge to apply paint.  I saw her pose as almost a dancing gesture.

I worked on her hair a bit, hm, not too exciting... I experimented with the paints I had on her face and found they were quite translucent and showed rough brushwork, which I did not like.  Now, this brand of acrylic paint is a world better than what acrylics used to be.  It comes in both a liquid style and the thicker style that is  in the traditional paint tube.  The liquid is more transparent.  Golden is the brand name.  But I could see that her face was going to need softening.

I decided that the green cloud shape wasn't working for me and made it into a white cloud shape...I added some stars.  I was beginning to understand what this painting "wanted" to be.  

I decided to make her hair wild metallic golden locks flying loose.  I had painted the previous hair out. I experimented with a few stars and started thinking about bubbles.  Now, I had never tried to paint bubbles before, but I had been thinking about them ever since my daughter sent me a series of photographs of bubbles at night, with lights on them, flying up, and I was able to examine how they really looked.

I started experimenting with the bubbles and filling in some stars.  I was still trying to soften her face.  The reason for the stars being like they are in those patterns is because of a dream I had as a young woman.  I was, in the dream, looking at the night sky and saw the stars begin to move and assume patterns and all kinds of shapes.  Of course, I knew what that meant.  It meant HE was returning.  Scared me so much I woke up.

I finally figured out that the bubbles needed to be outlined in a dark blue, in this case.  I added some reflections to them and they started to look like bubbles to me.  I did more stars, added a bit of a starry crown to the figure and worked on her wild golden locks some more.  Just about done.

At the very end I decided to make the white cloud more cloud-like, added more stars, worked on her body outlines just to hint at a figure.

That's pretty much it.  To me, stars mean eternal verities, bubbles mean transcendent joy, and I guess the sweet faced girl is experiencing all of that.  I also don't think it works 100% to try to talk about paintings.  They kinda work, or they don't, on their own.

The funny bubble with letters is my signature.

I learned a lot while doing this little painting and the results of my experiments will feed into later works.  I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work on it, I took more time than I have ever taken before with a painting.  Long ago, I used to really throw the paint around on great big canvases. They didn't take me long either! lol.  How cute!...  Art students....