Illustration Friday - Rain

The First Rain

The first rain reminds me
Of the rising summer dust.
The rain doesn't remember the rain of yesteryear.
A year is a trained beast with no memories.
Soon you will again wear your harnesses,
Beautiful and embroidered, to hold
Sheer stockings: you
Mare and harnesser in one body.

The white panic of soft flesh
In the panic of a sudden vision
Of ancient saints.

Yehuda Amichai (1924 - 2000)

This is a painted version of the pen drawing I did for Tattoo back in March. I've had enough of rain and dreary skies, so I am using this to illustrate how, after the rains, the fertile earth becomes lush with growth, celebrating in all its glorious colors!

I have decided to translate the Tattoo drawing along with some of my other smaller drawings into large paintings. It's been a very, very long time since I've done anything larger than 11" x 14", so before actually putting this lady on the 24" x 36" canvas that awaits her, I wanted to play around with background texture and colors, and think through the kinds of changes I will need to make in a larger, all paint format. I printed the original drawing out on watercolor paper, and then put down the background texture. Although it doesn't come through accurately online, the background has a stucco-like texture that I created by scratching lines into wet gesso with a plastic fork. I then painted in the figure with acrylics and made a few "repairs" to the linework where necessary with a micron pen. To finish, I put the background colors on with a sponge and my fingers. I rather like this as a small piece (9" x 12"), so I'm thinking I'll use this pre-painting process for each work I want to make into a big painting...it's a great way to test my approach, and I end up with a small painting as well!

Edit 6/29 - You can see the start of the big painting here.