Dance with doubt

When I'm done painting for the day I hang whatever's in progress on the wall in the lounge so I can see it at odd moments, which often provides clues to what has to happen next.

So after watching a movie last night I got staring at this piece and it started looking horribly pretentious. Part of this was the 'chick art' thing still hanging about, but what was this romantic thing of running horses for flux sake? And this ridiculous imitation of cave art? How pretentious is that? About the only thing I liked was the moon. Simple, honest, unmodified authentic strokes.

Some years ago I read a rather excellent book called "The Bohemians" by Dan Franck, about Picasso and that gang and the birth of modern art. Somewhere in it he describes the production of a piece of art as a "dance with doubt". It could be equally called a dance with certainty, as it's some sort of inner knowing that gets the thing moving in the first place. But I know the space he's talking about and last night I was deep in that dance.

It was quite late by then but the thing couldn't wait. I jumped up and threw some pretty certain paint at the back of the head. This morning I looked at it and saw a goddess having a seriously bad hair day. Out with the scrubber again.

The problem with this piece is that it looks completely different under different lighting conditions. In good light the colours emerge and the magic of tone and texture is undeniable. In low light it goes into hiding and the chick art thing comes out to taunt me.

Well, there's probably a solution in there somewhere, so after the scrub I pushed some paint around to see what might arise, still working on the area behind the head. Here's the result of the morning's work. It still looks like a bad hair day but I like the texture that's emerged. The paint is rather sloppy at this point and changes at the slightest touch, so I'll leave it as it is for now and play with it further once it's dry.

And anyway, a nature goddess probably needs a dose of wild hair to make her day.

In the meantime I added some colour to the body and gave the animals a bit of a push. I'm fascinated by the Lascaux horse on the left. He or she seems to be having a grand day out, with a decided spring in his/her (hirs?) step. Also interesting is how the modeling of the hindquarters has found its way into the horse on the right.

As for the pretentious imitation of cave art, well, I like the feeling of it. Hell, even Picasso made his big breakthrough because of a fascination with African masks. I'm gonna hang with it and see what happens.