Working in Progress

Newness overload

I had hoped to write about the next three Parrot Tarot cards this week but as it is already Friday, this week has gotten away from me. Instead, we can all look forward to that next week and I will share some sneak peeks at what I am just beginning.

This is the underdrawing of a piece about the Eleusinan Mysteries. The two figures are Persephone on the left and Demeter on the right. They are wearing two of my favorite pieces of Alexander McQueen couture that I am thrilled to paint. If I didn’t make a career out of fashion, I may as well paint it.

As with any piece, the drawing is always different than the finished painting, and it will be fun to share the progress of this piece along the way. And this is a portrait of me and my mom.

Another piece I have had on the back burner waiting to get started is my Simhamukha painting. Simhamukha is the second piece in my Goddess series, the first being Green Tara. Simhamukha is the Snow Leopard-headed Queen of the Dakinis in Vajrayana and she has called to me in a big way. I’ll go into the whole story of this piece in a post very soon.

Below is the Procreate sketch I made as the main reference for the piece.

I use a projector when I begin a painting. It helps me just to get the big shapes in and then I go back and draw in all of the detail by hand just looking at my reference materials. I have upwards of a dozen images per painting that I draw and paint from. You can never have too many references. I have four Simhamukha thangkas I am using as reference for the piece, even though there are only two pictured in this composite image. And there will be lots of other details that are not on this image and there are things that are on here that won’t make it in the final piece. It’s all part of the creation process.

Here you can see the pencil lines of what I projected and then I am going back over everything with ballpoint pen and drawing in everything else. This will probably take me the better part of two weeks to finish. This is definitely one of the most complex pieces I have ever done. It’s thrilling to be able to begin something like this and know that I can finish it in a reasonable amount of time now that I can actually spend time doing it. Do you like my easel on top of an easel setup? lol!

The babe and I went to the DeYoung today to see some “Aht” as baby Hawk says it. It was really lovely to catch the Fashioning San Francisco exhibition before it closed. It was truly spectacular.

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite pieces:

Christian Dior, 1949-50, evening gown.

John Galliano for Dior, couture 2002

Gianfranco Ferre, 2007-08 ready to wear.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! Get excited for more Parrot Tarot nerdery next week.