painting: The Rising of the Sea

[helenic]

mirabehn commissioned this last Christmas as evil_nick's birthday present, although as there wasn't enough time to do it by the 12 January I gave it to him at the April reunion of the Shakespeare readthrough we were doing on Twelth Night, sort of as a birthday reprise. The landscape is Camas nan Geall on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Scotland, which is one of mirabehn's favourite places in the world, and a frequent holiday location for mirabehn and evil_nick (I used photos from their trip in July 2004 as references, although they went back in May this year, shortly after I gave them the painting).

The poem is taken from Bilbo's Last Song by J R R Tolkien, which towards the end of his life he gave to his beloved Joy Hill.

The Rising of the Sea, Oil on Canvas, 12x16" (March 05)







Bilbo's Last Song

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!

-- J. R. R. Tolkien

Comments

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

*beams*

[libellum.livejournal.com]

*grins happily* Any idea if my measurements are right? It was a complete guess...

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

hey isn't that actually Skye?????

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

oh no wait it's from your icon. oooh creepily similiar. :)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I don't think so - the photos I used are here (http://www.fluffhouse.org.uk/evil_nick/photos_2004/0407_01_Skye/04_Ardnamurchan/index.html). I think a lot of Scotland looks like that though :)

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

oh it's from two photos then? the scenery from Ardnamurchan and the Elly&Nick from Skye. i see. it's very spiff.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

ah! I thought you meant the landscape rather than the figures. I know understand the confusion!

Thanks :)

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

well it actually looks pretty similar to the landscape where i took the photo of them sitting. but on closer inspection i see it is the same as the photo from Elly's icon, that i think Nick took.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Very lovely, particularly composition-wise. Colour's really effective too; the dark, rich green is pleasantly solid, and contrasts nicely with the light, open sea and sky. Also, you've made the horizon interesting, which is always tricky. My major quibble would be the text, but I'm highly sensitive to minor imperfections in this quarter.

Ardnamurchan is a gorgeous part of the world, but the only time I've been there was curtailed by a flooded tent. And you really don't want to get stuck behind cows on those wiggly mountain roads.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for the compliments! There are many, many things that dissatisfy me about this piece (at the time I finished it I absolutely hated it and everything to do with it), and the text and border are two of the biggest. I need to get some practice in lettering with brush - I'm better in ink, but trying to ink over oil paint seemed a bit hazardous and I decided not to risk it.

I've never been to Ardnamurchan, but I'd very much like to. We're going to Ardgour in April but I don't think it's anywhere near - Scotland is deceptively big.

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

it actually is quite near!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Really? Gosh. Near enough for a day trip?

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

yes. a pretty long one though due to the single track roads.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine how difficult brush-lettering must be. Me, I'd have pencilled in the text first as a guide, with Rulers and Measurements - admittedly, my confidence with paint has always been really low.

I quite like the border, particularly the way it changes colour to accomodate its background. The only issue I really have with it is that it doesn't accomodate the text-box very smoothly.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Mm, pencilling first would have been a plan. I certainly should have done for the border. Next time, I'll definitely remember to.

Yeah, the integration is naff. My main problem with the border is how uneven it is. I have a terror of celtic knotwork; I either do it painstakingly on mm squared paper in pencil and ink, or I do it freehand. Because I had no squared canvas, this was done in the latter manner, and it shows.

[mr_magicfingers]

There's talent there, and no mistake. I'm impressed.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

This isn't one of my best, but if I go on about that or try to show you better examples of my work my insecurity and tendency to show-off will become all too evident! At some point in my copious spare time I'll complete my online portfolio and all my art will be in the same place. Probably not before the summer though.

[mr_magicfingers]

One of these days I'm bound to be up Cambridge way, if you don't get the portfolio online before then. Look forward to seeing what you rate as better work. As someone who had their artistic gene removed at birth, it looks good to me, but then I also know the square root of fuck all about art other than 'I like that, or I don't like that'.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Well, the downside of all my painting at the moment being commission-based (because until next June, I can't afford to put time into painting if there's no guaranteed immediate financial return) is that none of it is in Cambridge, it's all on people's walls on the other side of the country :) However, by way of example, I consider my best piece to date to be this portrait (http://www.livejournal.com/users/libellum/80105.html) of my dear friend and ex-partner romauld. It was probably aided by the emotional context, however - I painted it for him during the time I was collared.

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

omg that is incredible.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I'm intensely proud of it, if a little bemused at how on earth I managed it. I feel like I should be improving, not getting worse!

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

I love the textures in the clouds and the land (nice echo of the border as well) and the way that the water looks so still and glassy. Looks good.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Wooowww that's fantastic! (The true words of somebody who never uses colour!)

I love the way you suddenly see everything's swirly like the border.

Lettering with brushes: slope to the right a little, it makes it 10x easier, and if it goes horribly wrong, stop, make it safe and do something else for an hour.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful. Thankyou for sharing :)

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

This is magnificent, just magnificent.

Happy New Year to you, my darling.

[yvesilena.livejournal.com]

OMG I LOVE IT. *stares*

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Really like this, the colours, the light, the atmoshpere, the patterns in the hills... gorgeous.