Gina's imagination

Many years back, I met a woman who enjoyed collecting art. She liked to purchase pieces that were created in a narrow palette rather than full of all kinds of different colors. The controlled color palette is very good for me since I like to grab everything I see and throw it at a canvas. She decided to commissioned me for a very large piece that would hang over her fireplace mantel as a kind of celebration of her recent marriage.

Gina imagined the piece being a kind of combination of a human and the natural environment. She described the image as “going up into the sky.” Being I love to paint the female figure I imagined some kind of very abstract tree or forest image, that would contain symbols or suggestions of the natural environment. The fun part was make the figure obscure; to add the hints of a person seen in the suggestion of a foot, head and dress in the trunk of the tree. I had to work to make the image not look like an alien, which, it just still might to some.

The size was the challenge for me working in a split level basement with low ceilings. This piece is 4’ x 8’ with a basement ceiling height of about 7’. I got very creative with balancing the 2 canvass on top of one another. One at an angle leaning up against ledge on the wall, the other one sitting on top of it. This had to be done in order to carry the image across similessly. I loved this particular challenge with the size, the creative liberty and the limited palette.

In the end we were both very happy with “The Bride”. Gina has smiled said to me, “it will be the one thing I bring with me when she move into a nursing home.” That says it all for me.