Friday, June 1, 2012

Pieces for Charity

My daughter who has moved and is now involved with her local parish is throwing a fund raiser..a silent auction.  So of course she called me and asked me to do a painting of Saint Francis for the auction.  So I say...of course.  I went online to photos of old paintings that were marked alright to copy.  I chose this one.  However it is changed from the original quite a bit.  I'm thinking "Oh no big deal...a piece I won't have to worry about...well..I started slapping paint thinking it's a small canvas...no big deal.  I normally do a good drawing at first...with this I carelessly started without a drawing and it was CRAZY!!! I can't begin to tell you the layers of mistakes under all this paint.  The simple painting turned out to be a nightmare.  The face still isn't quite right..but close enough for an auction.  I plan to lighten the top a little..add a border (that's why the tape is on the bottom)...paint the sides and be done with it...other than going through the shadows with some low lights...and now I see lightening the hair in spots.

The painting behind the auction one is changing direction as well.  Now I am going in the direction of basing it on a poem my mother taught me about my name by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

An Angel  robed in spotless white,
bent down to kiss the sleeping night.

Night woke to blush,
the sprite was gone.

Men saw the blush
and called it
Dawn.

So, you can see it's on a journey.  I plan to put the poem on a very sheer fabric I bought in a paper store...write it in a spiral and place it over the night part of the painting.  Then I will paint a sleeping night that is barely visible towards the bottom.