The Mystery on the Easel 2:4

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2:1

Easel 1 June

2:2

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2:4

The soaring notes of the Lacrymosa of Mozart’s Requiem reverberated through the room.  Orlando fled – he’s not a fan of the classics.  Siddy looked vaguely interested then settled onto his chair with his teddy bear and a sigh.  I looked at my paints.  The metallics looked back at me and I chose first bronze, then gold and turned to the easel.

Using my fingers I stroked long bands of bronze around the top and right edges and dragged and smudged them into the canvas.  It looked too heavy to me, so I swapped for the gold.  Gold is a go to metallic in any of my paintings – it sparkles and shines and I love it.  My finger traced stripes of gold around the blocks of colour, slowly, quietly as the music filled the room.    As the music moved into the Domine Jesu I finished laying down the gold and turning, picked up the white and began to paint random circles and spirals and somehow found myself enclosing them with black paint.   By the time I was done with that the Sanctus was reverberating around the room and  I picked up the metallics again and built them up some more, allowing the colour to bleed over and blend into the circles.

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There was no dancing today and I’m not at all sure about those black marks –  we’ll see what tomorrow brings!

Any thoughts to share?

Thanks for coming by today I love that you did!

42 thoughts on “The Mystery on the Easel 2:4”

  1. I am sure I could never do this. I start with simple, maybe a few lines but your process must have been intended to be cathartic. Pauline I love the grand finale, but would have been really confused. I am not liking the black circles either! xo 💐

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    • It wasn’t meant to be cathartic Robin – though it kind of turned out that way for me. I was interested in the fact that I changed the entire canvas every day – not something that usually happens. I think it was this curiosity about why I was doing that that led me to really think about each stage….. and in hindsight I saw what had happened.

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      • Well, you don’t need catharsis since you have been over all kinds of hurdles and survived, as have I.
        Once in awhile though, I find myself overwhelmed and I do rethink and relive my choices.
        I like your reasoning it to have been out of curiosity, but I do always feel your creativity is in the mix! 😊

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    • The comments are as much fun for me as the painting – on this particular day even more so! I felt quite cross with Mozart initially – but when I worked out what was going on it just made me laugh. His requiem introduced all my endings……..

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  3. The squares and rectangles surprised me after all the swirling and whirling 🙂 It’s very intriguing to watch your progression through each phase and the music is a lovely thread too.

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    • Ow Kym, I see I missed responding to this comment – my apologies! My interpretation of the squares after all the whirling and twirling is that is me trying to impose some order on the chaos. Which is really what most of my early life was about …….. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! 🙂

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  4. Oh, I’m behind on these, Pauline. I tried not to look at the previous ones so that I could view them in order. I’m so surprised that Orlando doesn’t like classical music, he might like The Doors, lol! I enjoyed the metallic touch on this one. I have a bunch of metallic spray paint. 😀

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  5. Wow! It’s like a whole new painting. I’m amazed at how you’ve done that. I like the shiny gold and what it does to the surface. I’m intrigued by your process, Pauline, and I’m enjoying these posts.

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    • Durn, I missed this comment Alys – I’m so sorry to leave you hanging and glad I decided to leap backwards in time and find it. The process is quite intriguing – in fact very intriguing as I just discovered. There are two more posts up from this comment and the last one will be ready for posting later today 🙂

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      • Hi Pauline! I’m playing catch up on comments today, too. It’s so easy to miss some when you’re busy and bouncing from post to post, including one’s own. I’m off (up) over??? to see what I missed.

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  8. I like it! I think the circles and spirals add so much to the painting. For me, they introduced a bit of mystery over the obvious wording. The gratitude, love, and compassion are still there, but you have to look a little further into the canvas to see them. Maybe work a little harder to achieve them, like in real life! Just my thoughts…

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    • I enjoy sharing the journey with you all too – it makes me aware of how every layer transforms and moves and becomes something different yet has been informed by what came before …… When I’m working more quickly and not stopping to take photos and notes I have no idea of what was there before.

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  11. I like the circles but I like the spiral best–more spirals! And maybe some softening of the black and white–but the tension between the geometric shapes and the organic ones works for me.

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  12. Oddly for a fellow meliorist I’m with Norah. Looks like large rivets holding down a wire frame obscuring your green and pleasant land behind… or alien worm holes about to burst with new and terrible life forms… I think I need to eat less cheese….

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  13. I’m getting the opposite to Norah – sorry Norah – a lot of positive energy in the black. For me they’re adding a depth to the paint. Ooow! look at that! I’ve gone from ‘what do i know?’ to art critic 😉

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  14. I’m afraid I’m not as positive in what I see as the arlingtonwoman. I see black spots attempting to obscure all the good there is in the world. Fortunately the white is coming along to obliterate them.

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