Michael Pearce

After a slow start doing the en grisaille on the man things really flew along and I got the basic landscape laid down with the broken up lake bed isolated in grey. It looks pretty psychedelic right now in orange (pretty cool actually) and will soon be turned white, while the presently grey sandy vista will become a tan, with some dunes. 

 

I must admit that I’m slightly disappointed in myself for failing to get the Aviator’s Dream face completed, but this was good work today, so it’s okay. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll start with that project before moving back to this one.

Bill Solomon came by this morning and showed me some of his extraordinary sculptural work. We have a good deal in common as far as 3d work goes. He has invented an imaginary culture that used artefacts made with gold and bark, and displays them in galleries as individual works and as pieces of an installation. I took advantage of his arrival to get him to pose for me for the Bombers piece, which I had begun laying out on the new canvas. I’ve given him a long beard. Sorry Bill.

 

This is in graphite over the gessoed canvas, so now it needs a thin first coat of a medium earth tone to kick off the painting. Here’s the detail (click for bigger image):

 

The figure is the hermit. 

There are some compositional tricks here that I think are totally exciting (what a geeky thing it is to think composition cool). I laid out the canvas based on 1.62, the divine proportion, placing the bottom points of a pentagram low on the canvas upon that line. I laid out the pentagram so that the points mark the locations of the mountain peak in the centre, the hole in the stone on the right, the cup bottom right, the lantern bottom left, the plate upon the stone on the left. The top of the hermit’s head is on the golden section, while his shoulders are on the lines of the pentagram in the centre of the pentacle. His knees are bounded by the lines coming from the top of the pentagram to the bottom. 

The four elements are represented by the holed stone (air), the solid stone (earth), the lantern (fire) and the bowl (water). The two pillars often appear in entrances to sanctuaries, and the hermit draws a circle around himself, circumscribing his actions and keeping him within due bounds.

The diagonal cross from corner to corner of the canvas provides the shape of the mountains and the site for the outside corner of the foot of the standing stones, the other corner being placed on the point of the second pentagram that lies on the circle on the ground (other points include the bowl, the lamp and something concealed behind the hermit.

Yet to be drawn into the composition; the moon, some coins and a knife. 

 

I spent a little time figuring out compositional structure for the piece, coming up with this cleaner and more balanced version. I like it – there’s a simplicity to it that I’m enjoying. I thought a good subtitle or alternative title would be “In the Wilderness”. 

It’s good to compare the two versions side by side. I have the old man completing a circle with his staff at present. I like the narrative implied here, that he’s defining his space. 

Here’s the sketch for the next big painting. Bombers is the name of an obscure David Bowie song I happened to listen to this morning that seems entirely appropriate as a title for this piece. Lyrics are here if you would like to read them. The figure in the centre is an old man, sitting in the white sand – he’s the hermit, with lamp and bowl before him. His staff rests upon his shoulder, and he is flanked by two standing stones, one holed.

I think the setting is in Death Valley, where the ancient white lake bed emerges from the sand dunes.