Three Graces

digital, 2/2/2020

There have been many renditions of the Three Graces.  The inspiration for  this one is Jean Baptiste Renault, 1793.  The inspiration for Renault's painting was a statue at the  the Libreria Piccolomini in the Duomo at Siena.  

https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/three-graces

Why did i make this?  To make something beautiful.  To work with the anatomy.  Something to do.  A pleasurable activity to do.

This image has been popular since ancient Greece, and even before that time.  I feel a part of a stream of artist who have painted this theme.  A theme of beauty, grace, charm and creativity.  

Horse Sampler,#1, for Dave, realistic

digital, 1/2020

Horse Sampler,#2, abstracted

digital, 1/2020

Dave asked me to make a picture of a horse.  I puttered around a while before deciding to do it.  I set my creative intention to be realistic, because that is what Dave likes.  After making the realistic horse in Photoshop I wanted to abstract the picture.  So i made up some loose guidelines.  I thought of diamond shapes, I thought about Harlequin patterns.  This was a lot of fun.  

Today, I worked on another pair of pictures, but with female figures instead of horses.  The realistic figures are almost done and i started abstracting them today. I am exercising my style tools, and doing something rather new.  I follow my muse.  I keep the art interesting, changing my guidelines, a bit here and a bit there.  I never get bored photo-shopping and painting.

The next thing that I want to do with the horse, is to blow him up.  I am excited to see how that will look. 

If that is not enough, working on four px's at once, I am also doing another thing even more out of my usual zone.  I have made some painted drift wood sculptures that looks fantastic.  I need to buy a new camera to get quality of photos of the sculptures.  Been doing the research on that.

Three Graces, Good Vibrations

Three Graces, Good Vibrations

digital, 12/14/19

Three Graces with Cardinals

digital painting, 12/2019

References an ancient Greek marble statue.

"Nike Popped"

Close up of "Nike Popped"

See my new series.  Floating World  Click link  to go to new page.

https://janetboydart.blogspot.com/p/floating-world.html

 

Floating Couple with Baby and Deer

acrylic on canvas, 30"x40", 6/19

 

Detail

Detail

 Floating Couple with Flowers

acrylic on paper, 18"x24", 6/19

 

 

 

 

Floating Couple in Pencil

pencil on Strathmore paper, 9"x11", 5/19

Flower of Life

acrylic on cold pressed paper, 9"x12", 4/19

These few pictures, record the recent evolution of my visual ideas.  I chose these px's, out of many, to summarize an artistic exploration of several visual, artistic, ideas.  The top picture shows my latest picture, the emergence of a painting, the flowering, the growth, of an artistic stream. 

My work continues to lead me along a wide and wandering path of visible invention.  I will be 75 years old soon.  Art has been my most steady friend.  Always available, like a listening ear, but visual, a conversation with myself.  Making art, expressing the essence of my existence, an escape from the box of conformity, to mold my mind, to reinvent myself, as I transverse this particular (and peculiar)  time/life of unique experience.  A piece of paper, a canvas, is a small piece of real estate, where I make up the rules.  A white rectangle of material offers unlimited freedom of expression.  Yes, it is about me, me, me; but I want to communicate, to reach you, and you and you.  To let loose the babble of my mind. 

Here am I.  What ever that means.  Here I am reaching out to communicate with you.  We are all both the same and different.  Our individual minds are a blob of almost incomprehensible jelly packed with a jillion  neuron wires sealed in a bowl of bones.  Art is a way to transport ideas from my bone bowl to your bone bowl. (OK, that was funny. Sometimes I just cant help myself.) We are each alone until we courageously  perform authentic communication. 

OK, enough of that cacophony.

These four pictures are a summary of the progression of ideas.  Starting with the bottom picture, and progressing to the top picture.

 I became interested in the "Flower of Live".  A basic pattern that is part of "Sacred Geometry".  I watched  a lot of You Tube videos.  I played with the pattern, using a compass and other devices that had lain useless for years in a studio box. The Flower of Life penetrated my dreams.  I awoke slowly in the morning with visions of the flower dancing in my head.  The videos explained that the flower pattern illustrated how everything, material and immaterial, fits together. 

The bottom acrylic painting illustrates the pattern. 

Next, I played with pencil on paper.  As I sketched, casually, I wanted my art to be happy.  Much art is angry.  Ugly art is trendy. There is too much anger in the world.  Buddha said,  "That which you attend to grows".  I want to grow joy. 

I reexplored the work of Marc Chagall.  His floating couple is joyful.  I riffed on his couple.  Making simple lines and shapes.  I wanted it graceful.

 The couple wanted a baby.  So I brought in Keith Haring to birth a baby.  Then the baby needed a friend, a sitter, while Mom and Pop floated ecstatically in the heavens.  A gentle deer volunteered and was added to the picture.  A protective tree grew grounded and womb like, around the deer and baby.

Chagall and Haring reached across the years to help me with this series.  We are so blessed to have a glorious banquet of art history to enrich our lives and art.