I managed to take a day off on Sunday for a mini-weekend. We all went to a very nice place near a lake (Bar Miradoe de Ardales) for lunch and stuffed ourselves stupid. Then we all came home with headaches from too much booze. Totally worth it of course - the food was amazing.
I then spent Monday and Tuesday expanding my friendship with this freaky leaf. Monday I worked on the lighter leaf undulations on the left side. I was bored with the black and needed to do something a little more obsessive in nature. I am generally feeling obsessive this week, and for the first time in ages, I am not taking it out on my food or my finger nails. Tuesday I went back to the dark side.
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| A rather large cabbage leaf growing in my studio... (A work in progress) |
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| A 'Cannon Ball Cabbage' leaf (Brassicaceae) - work in progress |
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| Close up on the cabbage leaf (Brassicaceae) - a work in progress |
The good news is that I am pretty pleased with how this leaf is developing. I feel it looks otherworldly and that is just how I wanted it to look. I wanted to see if I could do a 'Sci-fi Leaf' after I experimented with my Dr. Who Beans. I feel that this is going to be my new 'collection' of work. All ethnobotany has taken a back seat in the Inky Leaves Studio as I hover between astral planes.
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| Dr. Who Beans (Phaseolus sp.) |
Today I am moving onto the pineapple to take a break from this monstrosity. I entered a spot of bother with this black background as there is a bit of tonal variation in it and I still don't know how to depict it. It gets lighter on the left you see and added to this, I did want my black background to look like a black ground if that makes sense?! I want it look like an empty 'void'. I find a lot of the older paintings with black backgrounds look fuller rather than emptier. I want emptiness. Not sure if that's what I am going to achieve, so it's time to dream and ponder as I tackle the pineapple. I definitely need to think the lighter bits through. I am currently grappling with the idea of cross hatching like Rembrandt, but I can't tell if this will work until I have completed the leaf.
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| Rembrandt, The Shell, Etching |
