MON 23 NOV
One last brushmark sets off the pink and brings light into the painting...
SAT 21 NOV
Went back in to tune up colours, particularly the carved-out yellow, and introduce detail: pink dots and tentacles (railway lines, if you wish). Unique to this series, the source novel was a gift, sent to me 3 years ago from a couple of friends in Australia, who enjoyed the 'City of Glass' series. 'Hope you enjoy the detail and the obsessiveness'. I certainly did! Thank you Genevieve and Phil - hope its been worth the wait.
One more blast of David Bowie's 'Station to Station' - we're done.
detail
(4)
SAT 22 NOV
I'm enjoying this painting more and more. Book or window? The rose mark hovers towards us and the skeletal 'map' appears tucked behind. One more session...
FRI 21 NOV
Now we are getting somewhere (4). Time to clean some brushes and reflect. The palette of the novel is a bit grim: unrelenting grey, a summer sky 'almost blue' and accents of rose. I'm not so good with drab but we do have some grey. Also a blue made from a King's Blue and Payne's Grey mix. The stripe on the right-edge is a reference to the tan raincoat of the main character, sort of. A striking Burnt Sienna/Naples Yellow mix with a touch of Cadmium Yellow. The breakthrough came with the freeing rose-mark that echoes in shape and scale the yellow 'map' on the right, a visual shift, I hope, from left to right, that implies movement, time passing.
(3)
A book within a book, fiction within the fiction or a murder mystery that might be real. The novel has a complex structure, fliting backwards and forwards between past and present. I've tried to capture this concept of shifting time with the repeated motif of the map - a key element of the novel - in (2). It struck me that only two maps were needed, reflecting the pairings of Cain and Abel and the two sisters in the novel. (3).
'Stay' is becoming my new favourite on 'Station to Station'...
(2)
beginnings
'BOOK 19 - (Station to Station)' will be shown in my solo-exhibition 'Painting the Novel' at Linden Hall Studio, 3 - 24 April 2021.