So David and Greg returned some feedback to me concerning the initial concept painting for the Wassail cover. Overall they were very happy with the idea, but wanted a few tweaks and changes made. Having lived with the image for a few days, I also had a few of my own.
David was very keen to see a little more (painterly) tension between the two figures and also to match them closer in height and age. In terms of composition this was certainly a good decision. So I made little Eve slightly older and little Adam slightly younger. I turned them to face each other and also made it much more obvious that she was offering him the apple. Would he be tempted? We also decided to make the snake more obvious, peering down over little Eve's head - illustrating that he was having an influence over her actions. Once these tweaks and changes had been discussed and agreed, the lads gave me the go ahead to start painting proper.
I decided to use a traditional piece of stretched water colour paper for this painting. This is because the ground takes the paint in a certain manner. It can give a natural luminosity, if handled carefully, which I thought would be appropriate for this painting. I sketched out the piece in pencil first.
For this piece I used Golden acrylic paints (fluid), Winsor & Newton inks and FW acrylic inks. I absolutely love using ink. It gives a glow like nothing else. It is horribly unforgiving, of course. One mistake and you've had it. Overall I chose a cool colour palette - the piece is set in winter after all. But I knew that the rosy glow of the apples would warm the piece up. So I then began painting.
This piece was such a joy to paint (as have all the BBT pieces been). It allowed me to move away from my usual strong, graphic style and indulge the detailed part of myself. Parts of it felt a little like completing a botanical/wildlife illustration, which was just lovely to work on. I think the Magpie was my favourite little addition - and he also sparked an idea which was to come in very handy a little further down the line.
The final piece went off to Andy Poole at the end of January (if memory serves) and I was really delighted when the band members messaged me back to say that they all loved it.
At this point I felt really quite sad. For me, the Wassail project was over. It had been so lovely to work on, allowed me to explore and indulge a different part of my painting set. It had also been a great experience working with Greg, David and Andy - nicer fellas you could not wish to meet. So with some sadness, I took a step back and closed the chapter on Wassail. Until about 2 weeks later when Andy got back in touch and said "Um, you know your Green Man? Well, we've all been chatting and we were thinking we'd like to explore him a little further. How does that sound?" It sounds great Andy! So out came my paint brushes again!
Great post and fascinating read.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work too!
Stew.