For the last day of the year 2006 I thought I'd do a big update. In the last two days, I've been able to get to the studio and put in several hours on my painting. Here we go.

It's difficult to see, but in this picture, I have painted the waterfall on the left and painted over Neptune on the bottom left because she will be coming out of the mist from the waterfall. I will overpaint parts of her to bring her out.

The next two pictures are the Planet Uranus as I begin to add color to his jacket and after he is filled in with color. Understand that this is just the under painting. All these characters will have more detail as the painting progresses.

Moving below the waterfall, here's a detail of Neptune as I'm beginning to bring her out of the "mist".

In the next photo, you can see the Moon between the waterfall and the rainbow has been filled in. "Moon" is not in the Moon yet. Jupiter has color in his guitar and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is gold.

There you have it as the year closes out. Still missing are the planets Saturn and Pluto. After they are placed, then I'll add the details and all the stars and nebulae.

Happy New Year!

Venus Gets a Dress

Today, I gave Venus a pink cloud gown, painted Mars' trumpet, which you can barely see in this shot, detailed Mercury a bit, also hard to see here. I forgot to take a close up picture because I was talking to one of the other artists at the time -- distracted.

You can see, I roughed in Jupiter (on the rainbow). I still haven't decided on how to handle Saturn. I've got a couple of ideas but not sure which way I'll go with him. I need to go to a music store and look at a saxaphone from different angles.

By the time I get back to this painting after Thanksgiving, it should be dry enough to work on Uranus's waterfall and create the mist for Neptune. I hope so anyway. I used Viridian for her dress and Irridescent White mixed with Titanium White. Those colors may take some time to dry.

All in all, it was a good two days of painting.

Neptune Emerges

I'm having fun now! Got some painting done today. Here is a full size view with Neptune (lower far left panel) filled in. She will have to dry before I can paint the mist around her. Also, this is just the under painting. I'll be building her up along with the others after they are all in the picture.

Tomorrow, I will work on Venus and I'm not sure what else I'll paint at this point, but I'm gallery sitting from 11 to 4, so I'll have plenty of time. I also have another "tangle" painting to finish, so maybe I'll work on that. I also want to add some panels for displaying my paintings in my real studio area at Main Street Art Works.

At the left is a close-up of Neptune playing the flute, Mercury playing a keyboard (not finished), Venus (not finished) singing, and Mars holding a trumpet (not finished) and directing the musicians.

Actual Progress

Two things: I’ve been working on the canvases and I remembered to bring my camera.


In the first picture, I enlarged Jupiter. He’s the planet sliding down the rainbow. After I got these canvases to Main Street Art Works in Hilbert WI, where I’ve moved my studio, I had enough room to stand back to get a good look at everything. I could see that Jupiter (the largest planet) was not large enough.


In the second picture, I began painting the small planets, Mercury and Venus. Then I got curious about Mars and how he’d look with the others, so I got out the red paint and worked on him.

What I’m trying to accomplish in this layout is
1. a subtle Nautilus spiral using the postures of the planets to create the arch of the spiral and
2. preserve their personalities from the original set of individual planet portraits and
3. have them relate to each other as they play music. (What am I, nuts?)


In the third picture, I’ve painted the blue night sky, using almost a whole tube of French Ultramarine. I still have to get Saturn and Pluto in there.

Oh, get this. In today’s Sunday paper, I came across a headline “Pluto discussion at LU”. LU is Lawrence University, a local private liberal arts university in Appleton WI. I get all excited because poor Pluto has been down graded to a dwarf planet, knocking him out of the big 9. I’m thinking I could get some great information. The article begins “Lawrence University astrophysicist Megan Pickett sorts through the controversy surrounding Pluto’s recently down-graded status . . . .” The article is going along just fine until I read “A self-proclaimed ‘Pluto hater’ who has long argued against planetary status for the tiny sphere.” Pluto hater! PLUTO HATER!!!! What kind of talk is that for an astrophysicist? How can smart people be so dumb? What is the point of hating a chunk of ice in the sky? Don’t let me get started on useless uses of negative emotions. But, I digress.

I have plenty of room for Saturn and Pluto on the canvas. I needed to get rid of that large white area in order to see how the layout would change and to see what I need to do next.

Class dismissed.

Descriptions of the Planets

I am in no way an astrologer or an astronomer. I'm simply fascinated with the night sky. My Night Sky project is a combination of astrology, the study of celestial bodies on the influence of human affairs, and astronomy, the science that deals with the material universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere. And, think about it. Astrology came before astronomy.

Back to my night sky fascination for a bit. Speaking mere mortal to mere mortal, do we really know what goes on in the night sky? It's dark out there. What if, when we close our little eyes and go to sleep, the planets leave their rotations and get together for a jazz jam session? Imagine the fun they are having! My painting is all about the question, "what if?" What if we woke up, looked out and saw it the planets playing jazz in the night sky? What would that look like?

My images of the planets were derived from the astrological descriptions of Susan Miller in her book “The Year Ahead 2004” (so you see I’ve been working on this project for a time now). I meditated on each description until I could begin to see, in my mind’s eye, an image of the planet and which instrument the planet would play. I wanted to intuit everything in the paintings. These are the descriptions I worked from.

Moon
Rules your private life, especially your home. Feminine in nature, rules how you perceive women. Rules your history, your background, emotional development, and your ability to get in touch with your feelings. Drives your deepest feelings, the fine-tuning of your character, instinct, intuition, emotions and reactions. Rules the stomach and the breasts.

Mercury
Little planet. Messenger, communicator, non-emotional, rational, objective thought. Quickly moving, flexible, responsive, and adaptable. Disburses information. Rules perception, language, writing, editing, research, speaking, learning experience, and assessment of data. Rules telecommunications, computing, software, electronic gadgets, mail, shipping, couriers and transportation. Also rules sibling relationships, maps, letters, travel plans, appointments, roadways, vehicles, advertising, publishing, sales and public relations. Close to the sun.

Venus
Rules affections, heart, love life and pleasure. Feminine. Also rules gifts, beauty, adornment and art. Governess of all that is beautiful. Venus is alluring, magnetic and receptive, never aggressive. Uses charm instead of force. Can be seen as hedonistic, not deeply thoughtful, ethical or moral. Like Mercury, stays close to Sun. Brings opportunities to hear music, eat good food, enjoy a beautiful perfume, appreciate a fine wine or see a great art exhibit.

Mars
Energizes other planets. Aggressive, assertive, forceful, energetic, competitive and daring. The Red Planet governs the whole spectrum of masculine elements from sex to war. (Warrior Planet) Known for its courage, passion, strength and stamina. Governs sharp instruments, fire and anything combustible. Mars allows you to keep progressing even when the going gets rough.

Jupiter
Planet of good fortune. Rules wealth and financial or material gain. Brings vision, faith, optimism, loyalty, justice confidence and wisdom. Paints a broad picture and makes you think big. Physically larger than all the planets combined. The expansive planet – The Great Benefactor. Allows us to philosophize and find a higher meaning or purpose. Encourages reflection, study, and attainment of higher education. Inspires us to travel far and wide.

Saturn
Planet of concentration, permanence, tangible rewards, tenacity, ambition and productivity. Also rules caution, delay, constriction, limitation, responsibility, rules and regulations, pain, fear, authority, discipline, control and denial (task master planet). Without Saturn we would have chaos. Saturn forces us to confront reality. Saturn is cold and icy. A great teacher. Brings maturity and teaches us the value of patience and sacrifice. Rules the base structure of everything from teeth and bones to organizational hierarchy of a company. Governs historical, artistic and archeological artifacts.

Uranus
Rules surprises and all things unexpected, the future and new technology, all that is unimagined and yet to come. The father of electricity. Rules creativity and scientific genius. Innovative, unpredictable, resourceful, imaginative, idiosyncratic and experimental. Uranus’ job is to break rules and demolish established patterns or structures, creating sudden – even radical change. Works in sudden ways and is called The Great Awakener. Gives strong impulse for rebellion, independence, even shock. Exciting and liberating. Will overturn anything traditional or orthodox that it deems has outlived its usefulness. Produces quick, liberating results, blending fact with intuition in its quest to discover universal truths. Considered the higher octave of intellectual Mercury, strongly objective and brainy with no emotional side.

Neptune
The planet of inspiration. The higher octave of Venus, Neptune brings beauty to a higher, more spiritual level. Holds sway over dreams, the subconscious, illusions, fantasies and all things magical and enchanting. Intensifies intuition and teaches us to be deeply compassionate. Asks us to sacrifice for the greater good or for love of another. Refines, purifies and cleanses any visitors. Cannot bear coarseness. Gets us in tune with subtlety and increases the artistic side of one’s personality. Neptune rules all visual communication such as photography, movies, ballet and other dance arts, music, painting and poetry. Rules the sea and all other bodies of water. Governs rain, ice and liquids of all kinds including beverages and alcohol. Rules drugs – those that make us suffer and those that makes us well. Known as the Planet of Mist. Makes us want to escape the mundane, everyday reality and enter a more ideal, heavenly state. Urges us to excel and reject limitations.

Pluto
Rules transformation. Father of the Phoenix as it rises from the ashes. Symbol of rebirth. Governs the act of ultimate survival in the never-ending cycles of beginnings and endings. Catalyst for change and metamorphosis cannot be overemphasized. Intensifies and strengthens any sector or planet if touches. Rules obsessive behavior, taboos and compulsions, even crises. Rules fundamental issues including life and death, the ultimate transformation of energy. Rules all that is hidden, unseen or buried, including secrets, undercover work, strategic planning and even the roots of plants. Drives the unearthing or unmasking of that which is concealed.

Goings on in the Night Sky

I'm going to let you follow my progress as I work on my second installment of the planets playing jazz in the night sky, entitled "Midnight at the Moonlight Lounge".

On the first set of 9 paintings, each planet is in its own 24 x 24 inch square. (See website.)

In this work in progress, there are 6 canvases that make up the 6' x 8-3/4' mural. The canvas sizes are based on the Fibanocci numerical sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc. My canvas sizes are (square) 9, 9, 18, 27, 45, 60 inches.

I had an artist-carpenter-canvas maker build the stretchers because they had to be precise. If the dimensions were off, they wouldn't fit together and I had to have the rectangle (the outside edges) perfect or it would look awful. Lucky for me, this guy is a perfectionist. He had to stretch the canvas around the stretchers so the corners didn't have any bulk. To get these all to fit together, he had to complete the two 9" squares, bolt them together and measure the exact dimension to get his measurement for the 18" square, then bolt the 9s and 18 together and measure to get the dimension for the 27" square and on and on. As these things were getting larger and larger, he took it upon himself to build me an adjustable easel so I can raise and lower the whole unit depending on where I'm painting. I'm glad he thought of that because I didn't and I was beginning to wonder how I was going to paint at the bottom edge.

It's difficult to see everything that is going on in the photo right now, but it will become clearer as I begin to fill it in. Not all of the planets have made an appearance on the canvase yet. Some of them are still deciding where they want to go and how they want to look. Prima donna planets -- who knew?

Idle Time

It's the end of the Labor Day Weekend and the end of "idle time" . . . for now.

Idle time is a necessary time not only for rejuvenation, but also for creativity, so says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Creativity, Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. (Good book. He’s explaining creativity to me.)

And, I believe it. I certainly have experienced times of clearer understanding and have had flashes of enlightened thinking over creative problems when I have let go and allowed myself to relax. There is nothing that can compare to a “get-a-way” weekend when you can mentally get away, too.

One of my very favorite ways of enjoying idle time is to bathe my mind in the creativity of good music. Around here, jazz fests are popular over Labor Day Weekend. Man, I love sitting in a park with a couple hundred people having a good time watching a bandstand crammed with jazz musicians whose bodies are totally involved with the music they are making. The music is so unifying. We are all one. It glues our souls together.

I believe idle time, when you are fully focused on something other than your project, allows your problem-solving, rational-thinking, critical-analyzing thoughts to rest, to turn off for a while. It’s like in the movies when the story is building and building and then the violins begin to play and everyone relaxes and the scenery becomes greener, the sky bluer, the leading actors become even better looking and you in the audience feel your muscles, that you didn’t even know were tense, begin to relax. Relax and just be. Be there.

Then, pop, poppity pop. New neurons are firing. Or maybe it’s the old ones, but the corrosion cracked off. Whatever. You’ve got a solution or new path to get to a solution and you feel great.

I love idle time. Vital idle time.