My daughter and a couple of her friends modeled for me alongside a couple of my students for photos of the Empress, which I’ve also referred to as the Angel of Birth. The shoot went rather well, with my student Karli as the Empress being carried by the other four girls. My plan is to paint them with lots of flowers and decorative patterning. Perhaps six months ago I took lots of pictures of babies, and I plan to incorporate them into the painting too, so I’ll be busy drawing up a complex sketch pretty soon. The pose made a diagonal sweep across the frame, with some elegant ballet – style pointed feet meeting at center, and faces close together in a gradually ascending line from lower right to upper left. The girls were terrific! If there’s a seasonal correspondence in the sequence this is definitely Springtime. (Death is Fall, In Between is Winter, Life is Summer).
My old friend Cyn McCurry sent me the canvas I needed from Texas, so I’ll get Joe to help me stretch and gesso the fabric, then get to work drawing the piece up. There’s a lot of prep work to be done in the studio starting now, because we need to get the canvas stretched for this new Angel, and for the In Between painting that I’ll be preparing for in early Fall. Furthermore we have to get the thirty foot piece stretched and gessoed as soon as we can. I’m quite excited to get started on a new piece.
