Sunday, May 2, 2010

Pastel Callas for Amanda


A colleague of mine works with grids and patterns to create some of the most beautiful knitted afghans I have had the pleasure to see. Amanda lays out all of her own patterns; grids them, and then knits them into reality. She truly is an artist in her own right.
This piece wss done at her request. Amanda appreciates the flower so much she used them in her wedding bouquet. I wonder if she knows that the Calla Lily was the flower that the early Romans used to mark the passage of the winter solstice. The Romans planted the Calla Lily just inside the portal to their homes, timing it to bloom for winter solstice and giving the effect of bringing the light indoors during the darkest days of the year. The greater the display of Calla Lilies usually meant the wealthier the resident that lived there. The Romans valued them so much that they often decorated the edges of the bloom with filaments of gold. The Calla Lilies of Roman times were said to be much larger than today’s varieties, and often were as tall as seven feet!
This piece is done on coarse 80 grit, black sand paper with soft General's Pastels. It was a lot of fun to do, but when I transported it to Amanda at work I learned that the pigment wouldn't hold to the paper as I had anticipated; in spite of the fixative I applied. In my mind, the pigment had more crevices to hold onto, but I was sooo very wrong. I have started an acrylic version of this piece, but had to post it to treat it as a great learning experience.

Thank you for stopping in. Please feel free to leave your story in a comment.

3 comments:

Sketch Gurl said...

Love the soft feel in this painting. Well done!

Anonymous said...

These are gorgeous. You definately have a knack for flowers as a still life medium. No mere words can do justice to the mysterious look you gave them. Sketch is right. The soft feeling is incredible.

Anonymous said...

They have an air brushed look and with the shaded background not only gives this piece depth, it illuminates the subject.


Great, great, great work!!!!

Litos
xoxoxox