A few weeks back I tackled the job of creating an artpiece for the 13’x4′ space above/behind the master bed. I had lightbox on my brain but after three days of picking through a thousand photographic images to no closure, I opted to mural instead.
While a friend kindly referred to me as a painter, I felt obliged to correct her: I am not a painter, I am a monkey. I have enough of an eye, understanding of colour, and rudimentary form to imitate the art styles of others, but I don’t possess a distinct painting or drawing style of my own. And this lack of originality causes me distress. I can riff on a work and fiddle with the palette, but I remain in the purgatory of imitation. Emerging art students are frequently told to dig into the masters to improve their techniques, and I work to convince myself that this is what I am doing. Patience, my girl, patience.
My hands-down choice for project inspiration was Angie Lewin (thank you!), a superb printmaker/painter/designer out of the UK. She works her stylized botanicals in a lively, slightly retro, palette. Her painted world reflects the four seasons from the perspective of the woods, field, and shoreline plants. I wanted a late fall, boreal forest feel, so I chose Birches Ballindalloch as the model, and I’m eyeing her Hedgerow fabric to make cushion throws. I hope it won’t be long before I can collect her prints, too. Sigh.
I took up my brushes knowing that if the mural turned out poorly I could paint right over it. Happy to say, I didn’t have to.
