It’s been a while since the beaches opened up and here in Maine I noticed that the ocean had a much greener hue to it than usual. There were intense heat waves this Spring that must have been good conditions for phytoplankton. The temperature of the water was surprisingly warm for June, yet hardly any people and no one swimming.
This Spring, I let the garden go to weeds, sorry, I mean pioneer plants and planted a few new flowers here and there. As usual, the milkweed brought lots of bumble bees, honey bees and butterflies. Stay tuned for ‘In a small corner of the world, there is a garden, Summer 2016.’
Sketch in oil pastels and charcoal.
Sketch in turpentine wash on acrylic primed cotton canvas.
White, yellow and red wax added.
Yellow and Sap Green oils and some removing of wax.
Orange oil pastels in back ground and Sap Green Oils added.
The scraping away of wax and thread sewn.
More Lemon Yellow and Burnt Sienna added.
Final piece.
A film still found of striped fish was the inspiration to the following piece of art, dyed in complementary and analogous colors.
I mixed yellow and red Jacquard’s paint dye and painted the fish onto a cotton, linen remnant.
I then painted over the fish with melted wax and where ever I wanted it left white.
The dye bath was a light mixture of Caribbean Blue.
I let it dry and placed it in the window to see the image clearly.
I brushed on the melted wax where I wanted the light blue to remain.
Then, dyed it in a darker shade of Caribbean Blue.
Hung it up to dry. Here the light and darker blue show well.
The next dye bath was an even deeper shade of blue.
In the window all the colors can be seen.
The last dye bath was Black and Golden Yellow.
When dyed over the Caribbean Blues, it turned the cloth into a deep green hue.
I painted over the fish with more orange dye after boiling out all the wax, to brighten it up a bit.
Final piece back lit from afternoon light in window.
This was a challenging piece because of the amount of wax applied and with the final dye, I didn’t know what color would emerge. One can do test pieces, but I like the surprise. I did crumple up the piece before the final dye quite a bit which let in more darkness than wanted, so I ended up adding another layer of orange to the fish.
Here is a link to a more instructional way of doing batik. Fish in the big blue ocean, batik style
To see batik gallery visit this site Batik as Contemporary Art
“In the Tailor Shop” is a of a story about a mannequin who gained a soul through a tailor’s imagination. The story was from an obscure French play written by Anim D’Alo, taking place in the early 1800’s. Synopsis: An orphaned little boy runs away and finds a gentle blind tailor who wants someone to help him create his masterpieces. The orphan becomes his assistant and sews the tailor’s magnificent dresses for the town to see. They set them up in the window and as the passersby look at the mannequin who graces these clothes, the mannequin gains a conscience and ends up falling in love with an eccentric man about town, Monsieur Beau. This gentleman ends up saving her in a fire, a fire she starts by accident in one of her imaginative episodes and it is this man, who finds her in the ashes and brings her to life. Unfortunately, the Blind Tailor and his assistant die in the fire. A strange story, partly because of the subject matter, but also the feeling it imparted. As the very essence of the tale came to me, I sketched out these scenes where she imagines her thoughts coming to life. They translated into “still lifes” that were haunting and vague, yet intriguing pieces.
The first is “Dress”. The dress they made was intended to startle the people and make them look. It is an orange garment glowing with hints of cyan blue ribbon, giving the mannequin fire and an impetus to create.
After getting the kind of feel I wanted out of this piece, I started sketches on the next scene, where the mannequin is haunted by the eccentric man, Monsieur Beau. He rides a unicycle through town and has taken special note of her display. She is dressed in green, an olive, lime green that symbolizes her envy. She so desperately wants to become real that she emanates this green hue of color the blind tailor sees in his dreams.
In the next scene, named “The Resistance”, she knows of the mannequin heads that sit on her dresser waiting for her to look out of, this makes her sad because they remind her of what she is not.
There were certain colors described in the night scene where the little orphan puts together a purple, lavender silk dress that shone through the hallway light.
She lends her magic in the neighboring meat shop by lighting Chinese lanterns .
The following is the last piece I have done, titled “In the End She has Her Captors” where the mannequin imagines taking all of the vital belongings of what make up Monsieur Beau, the blind tailor and the little orphan and placing them in a net bag. She believes they are ‘soul parts’ for her taking.
I am hoping to continue this series with one more painting, depicting Monsieur Beau riding his unicycle in the distance while the mannequin is picking up scissors and making her wedding dress.
channeling the abstract 