Symbolic WIP

Maybe it is a bit soon for me to try and produce masterpiece paintings (I have neither the experience, talent or materials) however I don't mind challenging myself so I have started an A1 painting inspired by the book I read on symbolism within art. I quite liked the metaphor of Eros appearing blindfolded as if to say love is blind... and numerous other meanings of objects appearing in the masters works and so I gave a composition some thought and came up with an idea. First I needed some reference materials so I took this photo of myself (which was a challenge in itself) and my composition will comprise of this image of myself in the bottom left hand corner with other various items dotted around. The setting I thought would work best would be a cellar and I wanted strong light on myself with the rest of the image darker. So I hit google for various photos and came up with how I thought it should go (and every time I rested a new element occurred to me) I have started to sketch this out but already the problems have mounted up. Firstly the image I used as a reference for the cellar was distorted by the lens with several of the lines being curved... I only figured this half way through and placed a perspective dot in my ear and tried to aim the lines of the tiles on the floor at it which was only partially successful because not every line worked out like that (maybe the floor was uneven etc) As I was getting confused with some of the lines I had drawn for guidance I grabbed a black pen and went over a couple... this ink is no good though because it bleeds through paint. Titanium white is transparent enough that after about 8 coats some of this mess is starting to disappear. For some reason when I imagine this scent the ground is terracotta colour, yet my image it is more of a sandy yellow... In either case I want a good contrast with my figure and hard edges, as we move away from the central focus I want to mute the colours and soften the lines (not so easy using acrylic) moving into darkness. I am imagining a light source above my head which would cast shadows almost straight down on the left hand side of the painting but throw them towards the right hand side as you move further across the painting to the right. I want enough detail in the floor to give the sense of perspective but I don't want to paint every tile... the ceiling is like a rocky tunnel and there isn't much happening in the top half of the painting, yet somehow I have to make this interesting and show the form of the scene also... Basically quite a number of challenges already and I just have a start... As always I am open to comments and suggestions (as long as they aren't telling me what to do or some reflection of bizarre assumptions based on neo-Marxist identity politics) or just sit back and watch this one slowly unfold into success or disaster as it will.

The new identity politics do stem out of Marxist theory, though instead of revolving around class they revolve around a new hierarchy of victimhood - they are related, Marx exported these idea's and the Frankfurt school proliferated post-modernist theories of power and critical theory in order to seek socialist revolution, these idea's have filtered through society widely accepted and perpetuated by terrible media and university leftism. Regardless if anyone wants to try and bully me and reflect their twisted ideology onto me I won't be having any of it - I don't appreciate others building a strawman of how I see the world, especially when it is as inaccurate as the last one which made out I objectify women when that is the last thing I do.

The bird is a dove, a bird which mates for life and if it loses its partner it doesn't breed again... Although the blindfolded Eros is what inspired my pose the cards were supposed to represent multiple things like you can only play the hand you are dealt and life being a game of chance, each of us are blind in various ways because for all our efforts to learn (books everywhere) we all have limited perception. Blind in love, blind to the contents of every other persons heart and blind to possibilities. I thought the cellar was apt, we come into this world alone and we go out alone and I didn't want other people in the scene. Personally I live like a Spartan, I didn't want comfort and I wanted darkness too though it's going to challenge me. I was watching the documentary "Civilization" about the beginnings of art with cave paintings and so there will be some hand stencils on the rock, I wanted the scene to be in a primitive environment... people think we are somehow more sophisticated than our forebears but we haven't really moved on despite our more comfortable circumstances.

I didn't feel much like painting today so didn't get much done today. I am a bit undecided about colour choices for the floor and walls, there needs to be some balance with some cooler colours so maybe I should do the walls and ceiling a blue/grey as I want some contrast too, nothing is as it will stay at present. The barrel needs to be painted and it is not just a flat colour but a complicated series of dirt, grime, scuffs and scrapes...more browns again. I think I will change the colour of the blindfold to red to make it pop out and just try to get the canvasboard covered in paint before I start to refine anything... Also I'm busy the next few days so I doubt I will update this for a bit...

Did a little more... and funny that I hated brown paintings in the past but everything is kind of brown.