Allegra

Mixed media on canvas 24" X 30" $400. If you are interested in purchasing this painting please email me at katherinemccullen@yahoo.com

It always surprises me how inspiration comes when you least expect it. If this composition seems familiar to you that's because it was originally a journal page called The Mummer's Dance (click on title to see). I've known since I finished that collage that someday it would be a painting. (My Artistic Life) Something about her joyous dance captured my imagination. (Inspire Me Thursday) The original collage was also the first art piece I ever sold. I began painting this in January, but I got stuck on her hair. I couldn't figure out how to get the effect I wanted. So, I left it alone, hoping that something would come to me. I've spent the last several weeks learning something new, concentrating on abstracts, and I was so excited about what I was doing that I forgot about Miss Thing leaning up against the wall in the corner. Friday morning over coffee,though, I happened to catch a glimpse of her. I'd originally textured a larger area for her flowing locks, but late the night before I decided her hair was out of control and decided to give her a little makeover. So, I took a paint scraper to her and began to chisel chunks of molding paste off, leaving areas of black canvas exposed under the paste. I liked the way the rough black and white looked on her. So I took my palette knife and more black paint finished giving her a new hairdo. Suddenly, the whole painting came together, and I knew exactly what to do, From that point on it was amazingly easy; the painting almost finished itself. And here she is, my celebration of spring, Allegra, dancing in a midnight garden.

At One Powerful Hour, where the challenge this week is Spring, the disclaimer on the sidebar said they didn't really care if the creation took an hour or not, that they really just wanted to see what we'd created. Well, my painting took a lot of powerful hours; just piecing together her crazy quilt skirt took quite awhile, but cleanup might have taken an hour.