Looking Up

 

Looking Up, 1

Acrylic on archival paper,  18"x24",12/2018

Looking Up, 2

Acrylic on archival paper,  18"x24", 12/2018

Looking Up, 3

Acrylic on archival paper,  18"x24", 12/2018

 

 

 

 

 

The sun is rising as I step out into a bright, light purple world.  Purple prose be damned, that is how it started.  I wanted to paint that purple light.  The quality of the sunrise might be called lavender, but lavender sounds even more purple than purple. 

 

I had been planning, in my mind, the creation of Looking Up. My best planning is done in the hypnogogic and hypnopompic states that occur when one is falling asleep, and as one is waking up.  On an electroencephalogram, the electromagnetic waves of the brain would measure a slower pace for the firing of neurons.  The change in perception, the change of a brain channel, is indicated visually, is measured, becomes scientific data.  Introspectively the brain channel changes from waking, to dreamy and visual, then to sleeping and levels of sleep, then, before waking the channel is again dreamy and visual, on the edge of waking "reality" and dreams.  A bridge between the subconscious, or Jung's collective consciousness, and the concrete of wakefulness. I see pictures, I visualize painting the pictures, as I move between various conscious states. 

 

I painted three pictures working with the plan.  Modifying the plan as I painted. I am open to changes, new insights, happy accidents, that occur in the painting process. 140 pound Arches cold pressed paper.  I like the pebbly surface, it makes a fine texture under water thinned paint.  I paint with Golden acrylics from the tube used in a watercolor manner.  The paint is watered thin enough for the white of the paper to enlighten the picture.  When it is called for I will use opaque paint, but mostly I like the fluidity of wet in wet.  Layers of transparent color, glazes, create subtle color variations. 

 

These pictures show exaggerated perspective, the lines of the trunks create depth.  The branches get smaller as the trees move toward the off center circle, more depth.  Color is greyed, lines a bit blurred, more depth. 

The viewers eye is driven by the impelling convergence of the trunks. 

 

The eyes are led to the pale circle.  But, there is not much in that circle, it is just pale with an irregular outline.  It could be the sun, or the moon, or the gate of heaven, or a portal to a different reality, or just a peculiar/mundane round patch of sky.  A mandala design allows for layers of meaning and the viewers subjective experience.  The blankness of the patch invites reflection, makes an empty space that may induce introspection.