New Root

This is the variety of plant that supplied the root for "The Wishing Tree."   I haven't identified it yet, but I will.    And a picture of the piece in progress.
 (This is from the finished piece on the previous post.  I'd planned to post it then but chose to whine a bit instead. )

I didn't get photos of it before I cleaned it up.  I did the rough cleaning outside with my feet in the water.  That part was fun.
It got harder by degrees.  With subtractive art, there's no "undo."  And no "redo."  Once it's gone, it's gone.  After a while, the choices got more challenging.
  How to find the center? The "front?"  The balance?

 Eventually, I did.   Then there was endless sanding.  Satisfying though, to cut the branches at elegant angles and give them smooth edges.   The hardest part was unearthing the metaphor.  Those are in deep closets and sometimes, they bite.  This time was no exception.  The piece has a very animal-istic shape.  Odd textures are skin-like and the branches like antlers.   I liked pairing that with the antique brass.  

  Today my neighbor gave me another root.   It's a whole different animal.  No branches to sort through.  I'll have to spend some time turning it over and around and looking at it.   But first I had to give it a good washing with a stiff brush. 

Yeah.  This is most definitely going to be a challenge.  I'm thinking about posting this photo on fb and suggesting it's food.  It's somewhat believable - I do hail from the deep South.  So wrong.  So, so wrong. I meant, me.



I left it to dry in the sun and went on to make some additional progress on "Through the Dark Night."
A long way to go.  This painting is inspired by the poppet of the same title.  It's for a segment in the book.  Same title.                                           

You might wonder how I got from the last couple of posts where I couldn't get centered, to here, a productive day that mostly makes sense.  Possibly I worked it out in my sleep.  I'm not sure.  But I woke up having decided to put my fears aside.  I had my count to five.  I gave into it.  Then I let it go.  (Thanks, Jack.)Because that stuff isn't anything like the dark night.    The dark night is a whole different animal.

 Tomorrow is for Orion. I can't wait.