This has been a bit of a frustrating excercise. Normally I would be inspired by a colour to work to. This time, I am limited by the materials I have to work with. Purchased a set of wings at the 2 dollar shop, and some cheap beads all in pink. I would put pink and red flowers together, so have decided to run with the pink angel wings. I have cut them in half. Then plucked some feathers off the back, and made a feature on the left hand side. I had an old red earing- one of, so decided to put it on the righthand side of her face. I remembered that I had a pair of pink studs, that had never been worn, so one adorns her nose and the other, under her lower lip. I could keep fiddling, I could dip the ends of the feathers in a food dye to tone them down a bit. But honestly, I'm mentally exhausted tonight, and am actually over this masquerade mask by now. . As for now, its back to doing what I do best.
I have an idea !!Alot of the masquerade masks that I saw were venetian inspired. They had a lot of swirls and marks around the eye area. I went scuttling out to the bowels of my art cupboard, where long, long ago, I played around with some paint that I could make t.shirt art with. I used a lovely gold, and it had a nice raised effect. Now I just had to pray that the other bottles hadn't dried up. I had to put a pin down the neck of a few as they had blocked, and had a few swearwords when the liquid blobbed out, out of my control !! I then thought, i will put a few scrolls here and a few scrolls there, and forgetting the old kiss principle ( KEEP, IT, SIMPLE, STUPID) I kept scrolling and flicking and adding, and feel, I have slightly overdone her.
I also have the bowels of a sewing basket, where I used to do crafty things, ( back in the days where I was even stupid enough to darn hubby's socks !)
Well in there , I found what I was looking for, a bag of doll hair, all brown and curly. Dont know if it will work. I really dont want to buy anything for this manequin. The ones on the web, had beautiful feathers............hhmmm........Lot of cockies in the back tree- only joking, they might shed them or something. Anyway, I am now going to go into the bowels of my beading tins, yep,,,,,,,,that was in my " jewellery phase" I figure, I may have some lovely jewells, that I could use..............somewhere.........God knows how this mask will turn out. 
What colour? what style? what what what????????/ I saw one on the web, that was like a jester, with curled pieces hanging down with bells on it....now that inspires me, but, will it go in my friends mums house?? will she want some jester laughing at her, day in day out? Then I saw some rich women looking ones...rich in colour, deep mauves with a gold wash. Deep burgundys.....maybe that is more likely a colour to choose.
I have sponged on a mix of burgundy and gold. Across the forehead, around the eye area, a touch on the nose, and a little under her chin. The lip area, I decided to paint doll like, with a thin lip line on top and a rounded area underneath.
My friends mum, asked me if I would make her a masquerade mask. To be honest my firsth thought was .........strewth!!! I have never ever made one before, or to be frank had any desire to make one. I bought a mask from spotlight, thinking I would be able to pick up a sturdy papier mache one. Nope, they have very flimsy, crappy shiny plastic ones. My mind has gone into overdrive. To paint on that, to get the acylics to stick, I would have to use tile and glass medium. Sounds like a lot of trouble and then, I'm not assured it wont just scratch off. So, I have used sellys aquadhere, watered down and tissues and layered a few separated tissues and just kept glueing. Then when that was dry, I have painted it a base colour which is titanium white and a skin colour. Having googled masquerade masks, I'm more confused than ever , so, I think, I will just create, and try and have fun. I thought, I may make it a work in progress, Just to show that I'm not off doing housework or baking or some other mundane chore !!!
My special art friends helped me out with a bit of a critique on this piece which is so, appreciated. So taking their advise, I have softened off the floor, so they dont look so much like on a tightrope, and I have given the lady at the back of the que, one less spare tyre, so it gives her an extended bust line ( so much more comfy to let 'em all hang). I have also tried to link the little fairies a tad more to their gentleman. I declare that I'm happy with it now, and have signed it and matt varnished it..........dah dah.........onto the next project.
I think the time has come to put the paintbrush down ! If I keep fiddling I know i'm going to mess it up. Had a critique from my sister tonight. She loves it. ( phew) And was suggesting another couple with oldies in them.
I like the colours, and I like a couple of the characters in here. The little skinny old lady was a nana of a couple who got married not long ago. The little old lady in the purple, is taken from my stepfathers nursing home. she always has her walker strewn with flowers and matching earrings and matching outfit. The man walking looking behind him, represents my stepdad, who is daily succumbing to the vascular dementia/ alzheimers, thing and goes from quite vague one day, to escaping the next. The scene is one often seen in nursing homes and hostels, and I love watching them fall into line, some zooming along with their walkers, some just following. Its a light hearted look at a subject where I have no doubt, that I will participating in, one day in the future. Hopefully by then, they will have abba piped thru the speakers and the nutbush set for excercise morning !!
This painting is taking Hours !! It just keeps asking for more ! Number one critic is not impressed at all. Which makes me go back to it, cos I am determined, it WILL work ! Sadly, Its not doing what I set out to do. I wanted it to be a humourous account of a day in the retirement home and instead, looks like an overdone picture. Oh well, I have my taekwondo teacher a few years ago to thank for my persistence. She taught me, that if you dont finish something when it gets hard, that is how you will spend the rest of your life.......never finishing anything.
Its funny, but, the longer the sessions in between this painting are, it seems that my people cant progress down to the dining room for Dinner. Iplan to finish it by this weekend. That is, if I can get out of housework.
Bit by bit this piece is coming along and I have told myself, that I will not rush it. I will take my time and add small amounts each time. The colours are looking great I think. How I came about this colour scheme was, I was noticing on all the winners from camberwell. They seem to be these colours. so, taking reference from a seaside painting, I am using this " recipe" just as an experiment, and then we can see if it works or not. I have an uncle who has a theory that you have to have dashes of orange in a painting for it to sell. Now for some reason lately, I have begun to believe this theory and well. I have been putting a dash or orange in. HHmm no one has noticed yet.
Oh, you know when youre painting on automatic pilot, when you dip your paintbrush in your coffee !!!!!!!!!!! Bugger !!
I'm at that stage in the painting where I'm impatient. The paint isn't covering quick enough. I procrastinate at the best of times, so every time I come back into the room to start again, I decide, that I will change the colour scheme and have to slap myself and tell myself to stay focused.
Well, below is the start to my latest painting. I suppose I should explain how I came to the idea for this painting.
I had a lovely friend who was in a hostel. ( Aged care facility) At lunchtime or tea time the staff rang a hand bell and all these beautiful chronologically challenged people started to file out of their private rooms and form a file of sorts down the corridor. They were in wheelchairs, on walkers, had walking sticks etc etc. There were 95 year olds, 85 year olds and younger and older, frail and robust. It used to make me smile, as I watched the procession, often falling into step with my friend Betty who at 86 did very well in the walker race. She could balance a cup and saucer of tea on her walker and make the return journey to her room. Exhausted !!
So this painting is an ode to them. Hopefully it will be happy.
I entered my painting of my little girl walking the pram down the brick path into the pastel society's members encouragement monthly awards last night ( 1/9/08) and won 2nd prize, so was thrilled to win that. To get votes from your peers is a real buzz. My friend from my art class- Kay won first with her asian children which was lovely and colourful. I'm sure my lovely art teacher would be rapt to know that two of her students took out the awards last night.
