painting: Fire and Flight

[helenic]

Fire and Flight
February 2007
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 16"

Click for bigness :)

Commissioned by ladynina. She wanted a nude portrait with a magical theme, containing the four elements, with the greatest focus on fire. The hearth/wilderness symbolism was entirely unplanned - this painting ended up saying quite a few things I hadn't intended it to, mostly intuitively, and all of them go deeper than my understanding had when I started it. Then again, I never really try to interpret the images I produce. Anything I can't say in the paint itself isn't my job to say. :)

Comments

[arachne.livejournal.com]

ooooooh, that's *wonderful*!

[ladynina.livejournal.com]

I was just about to post about this. I love it, it is very disturbing and you've brought so much to the surface.

[lupie-stardust.livejournal.com]

I adore how you cope with skin-tones. You really are the skin mistress. I bow to your superior talent with colour. *bowscrapekneelgrovel*

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I blame entirely the fact that I am a skin fetishist.

Mmm, skin.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou!

For the first half of this I was totally proud of this. Then as I was getting to the end of it, I started thinking that it was really bitty and patchy and not a coherent composition at all. So I bunged loads of extra rich colour into all the negative space. Which is clearly the answer to EVERY COMPOSITIONAL QUERY EVER.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Really glad you're happy with it :) I'm always anxious when clients give me as much leeway as you did!