We Are Stardust...

One of my favourite songs has this line in the chorus: the haunting Matthews Southern Comfort version of the song, "Woodstock". It entirely feeds my more romantic and dreamlike ideas I had when I was a child and longing for the stars. Maybe it was the lunar landing fever of the time - the late 1960s - or the Aquarius movement, but it was timeless. Then and now.

I had to produce something new for my art panel at the forthcoming world science fiction convention in Denver, and over a 48 hour period I managed to finish one painting and complete two more. With Last Farewell, I finally brought to a close an idea I had many years ago. While searching boxes of paper for sorting and chucking, I found a small thumbnail sketch I'd jotted down at random. I looked at it for a long time, and thought "I can finally paint this!" So I did.

Stardust was just a passionate doodle featuring two of my favourite elements: a soaring, swooping pointy rocket ship and a nebulous, hazy background - this time it's a ringed giant. It was kind of blissful to do.

Starstream Camping is an idea I had this year, and had given up on after the first attempt. That initial start had included a big chunk of planet in one corner and the tent being placed on one of the asteroids in its ring. It just wasn't working, and I wasn't happy with it, so I put it aside. That was several months ago. Last week, I had an epiphany of sorts and said to myself "Why does it have to be a planet? For me, it's always been the Stars..." I whipped out a board, and a day and two painting sessions later, I had a painting that speaks volumes. One of my very favourites so far...look for the whales and inquisitive dolphin...

Starstream Camping

(10x10", Oil) PRICE: $275.00 SOLD

Stardust

(9x12", Oil) PRICE: $80.00  SOLD

The Last Farewell

(14x18", Oil) PRICE: $350.00 SOLD

As usual, the photography doesn't do them justice, but it's close.

Palette included: Titanium White, Viridian Green, Cobalt Blue, Cerulean, Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Red Light, Cobalt Violet, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue. My big blending brushes got a serious workout during this lot, plus a couple of Filberts (big and small), and a couple of pointy little Rounds.
Thanks to author Jerry Oltion and his romantic and sometimes funny outlook on outer space, and to his short story "The Big Two-sided River". River is about a miner who goes camping the old fashioned way on an asteroid in the rings of a gas giant planet. Thanks Jerry, the story and the atmosphere has lingered these past years.
Cheers,
Marianne