Hello folks, hope your New Year has started well, and thankyou all so much for visiting me here during 2011 and for all your kind words, encouragement and friendship along the way!
Lets hope 2012 will be a healthy and a happy one for everybody!
So here is the first painting of 2012 and the second in the series of Raven paintings I've been planning to do! For want of a better title it is for the moment called 'Huginn & Muninn II'
It is funny how its worked out - when I was working on the first Ravens painting there was a wild winter storm blowing and howling around the house, and again for this second painting the winds were furiously rattling the sash windows and stirring up the skies.
To add to the wild lament of the Stormsong outside, next doors dogs were howling mournful accompaniment, as if the wind's ghostly song were calling to some deep ancestral wild-wolfish memory! Very atmospheric!
(Closeup detail)
I painted this larger than the first which gave me more room for expression in the penwork on the Ravens which I like, but as yet I am undecided whether the sky is working or whether there's too much going on in this one. I want it to be dramatic and full of movement, but not too fussy either... one to sleep on maybe...Although there are parts of the wet-on-wet and salt that I really like just for their own sake...
I did enjoy these two fellows though, and think they're better drawn than the first pair. There is something rather magnificent about a Raven... I wonder which should be Huginn - or Thought, and which one Muninn - Memory?
Here are the two so far together, I think I prefer the sky in the first and the Ravens in the second! Oh well, tonight I think I might stretch some more paper ready for a third, slightly different this time... (Sorry about the slightly murky photo in the second one!) Hope you like them! Bye for now...
I love the new header! I think it brings the different aspects or your work (or at least a few) together beautifully. Both skies are wonderfully atmospheric, expressive, and dramatic. I like both for different reasons. Happy New Year!!
ReplyDeleteLove them both! Would adding the spindly branches of a tree top to the left of your paintings be too much do you reckon? I look at both sets of pictures and immediately think that the ravens are looking for shelter from the buffeting winds! I thought of you the other day - was driving around a very stormy Wiltshire and saw a wonderful cloud formation that absolutely resembled your salt skies. Had I not been driving I'd have taken a photo of it, it was so pretty!
ReplyDeleteLove the addition of the ravens in the header!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the lovely comments folks! Glad you liked them...
ReplyDeleteWiltshires not so far from me Kate as it happens, I'm in Somerset! Wish I'd seen that sky, and nice that it made you think of something I'd made! That's great!
I like the new header. The ravens add just the right touch. Have you thought to space the ravens out more on the third painting? Thought is faster than Memory, I think. . . Thought flies on ahead while Memory slows to take in the details.
ReplyDeleteSuch rich textures and swirls of color in the background. And your inkwork on the crows is wonderful.
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