This is really an Ode to Arthur Rackham and his many beautiful enchanting trees.
What begun as a sketch for my daughter, has turned out to be a venture in sculpting. Initially the idea was to create a doorway in which the traveller can climb through, to gain access to the realms of the imagination. The sculpture was created primarily to give me a real three dimensional object in which I could move and interact with, to get the most dynamic composition. The feeling needing to be captured is one of a secret enchanted tree, found by chance, behaving in a fantastical way, perched un naturally from a mountainside with a fisheye distortion. So now the problem still remains choosing the most interesting perspective! There is too much choice now, it seems to be a problem that re occurs, never having one single voice but many. Then there is photoshop, with hours of constant dabbling of a canvas that never get's dry :)
My father recently, well one year ago, asked me to paint him a portrait. It's taken so long to get to this point and still it doesn't feel finished. It shows me how much I have to learn about light, mixing colors and creating a feeling and theme in which to reflect your feelings about the subject matter. Our family home has a wonderful sunlit music room with my Mums grand piano and a beautiful Blue Cypress tree my brother and I climbed as a child. It felt like the right setting for my Dad to be, in a light magical setting, he has been the wisdom and back bone of our family and I love him very dearly. A very knowledgeable worldly character, my impetus was to try and create the idea that he has a mind of wonder and awe, so above his crown there needed to be a symbolism and felt that a spectrum of light twinkling through the tree branches could achieve this. This digital ink is ready to dry for now :)
