A Vienna influence

Echo
Oil on Panel
12x24"

I was really trying to capture the delicateness of this model - she's tiny. I've been lucky enough to have two models with this kind of girl-woman physique. I've also been reading a great book I scored from a hidden second-hand book store on the art of Vienna at the time of Klimt, Schiele and Kokashka - some of my favourite artists. I think some of the emotional weightinness of those artists came through, which I'm happy about. I'm intrigued by the somewhat abstract narrative which emerges when I let myself go in a painting. If I don't try too hard, and just focus on a strong image, allsorts of things come out.

Teapot & Spoon

Bid for this painting on Ebay!

Before we went climbing this morning I painted this little study. I'm really pleased with the cloth underneath the teapot - I've been thinking about using a Gustave Klimt-style decorative theme for the background of the large Tea Party painting. I happened upon the idea of using floral fabric when I was sketching a mock 'tea party' out on the deck a couple of days ago. By lucky chance I was drying our floral comforter on the washing line, and so it provided a natural backdrop for the compostion. I found this pink fabric in a cupboard whilst I was hunting for still life ideas - it was a curtain from my precious Matilda (the'76 Dodge Camper we travelled for 18 months or so in)

The spoon is deliberately large, and is a referance to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. I'm going to play with the scale of things in the painting, partly out of the Wonderland influence, and partly because this painting will be about being young and everything seeming bigger than you. After all, little girl's tea parties are about pretending to be a grown up - mixing sloppy mud in a cup instead of tea, and wearing mum's big shoes and makeup.