Friday 4 March 2011

Wedding Blues

It's 5.00 on a Friday and I have been working diligently all day on a sensible, money earning illustration job.
I am seriously thinking of impaling myself on my own pencil, but I am too bored to sharpen it....
I know, 'I'm lucky to have work at all in the current climate' etc etc.
Mustn't grumble.
I am now going to turn a blind eye to myself while I bunk off early and get on with The Big Blue Painting.
Also, if I post images of it so far, it will make me finally finish it.
The concept came from a photoshoot last spring.
A crowd of outrageously decorative creatures had turned up at a rented studio to model for me.
Amongst them was the tallest, most exotic and ethereally beautiful young man and his equally stunning girlfriend. (The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that she also features in the Adoration of the iphone)
Enter Andrew and Amanda.
He had been described to me as a peacock, and it was obvious that together they were a painting waiting to happen.
During a teabreak, they stepped outside and as they did so a wedding party went by and gave them the sort of look normally reserved for things you've trodden in.
Considering the bride appeared to be wearing a meringue and her intended bore more than a passing resemblance to crippled penguin I thought it was a bit thick, really.
At this point it would be easy to get all crusading about narrow minded bigotry and xenophobic intolerance towards people who step outside the perceived norm, but in truth it was really just one numpty moment.
The fact that some of my lot had come on the bus in all their Gothic splendour without any problem sort of balanced the whole thing up, but it gave me just what I needed as a counterpoint.
I'm more concerned with celebrating the colour and magic that interesting people bring to the world.

So, here are the various stages so far.
It's a big painting (about 6'x3') and it's taken flippin' ages.
I've changed the background so many times it weighs more than I do now.
I started it last April and it's been treading on the back of my shoe ever since.
I've finally worked out was missing, as a result of standing in Westonbirt Arboretum on a windy day.
A big gust virtually stripped a Sycamore tree, and for a moment I was surrounded by falling leaves  - just like confetti.
Bingo...
No more excuses, I shall now finish it off and get it photographed.
Honest.

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