Watercolor, 2010

Artist's Notes

Even though I started this painting on Friday, February 19, 2010, I have thought about this idea for several years.  My original concept was to re-create the statues from the real Easter Island as Easter rabbits, sort of a play on words.  It is a fantasyland where even the clouds are Easter eggs, the ground is Easter grass and all the statues are rabbits and one stone egg.  It will be colorful, fresh and sweet like a dream world.  A place to escape to where there are no problems and nothing to fear, or is there?

As a twist, while I am creating a visually bright illustration, I also wanted to create an uneasy feeling with the statues.  The clouds are nice and airy, the colors are bright, but the statues have a heaviness or volume representing a mass and presence that might not be very friendly.  While they are rabbits, they are certainly not small and cuddly or soft.  That is a possible reality of the world -- that one's perception of things is always questionable.

These massive statues were called Moai, and they represented deceased ancestors.  It was believed that the living had a symbiotic relationship with the dead -- the dead provided everything the living needed, and the living, through offerings, could provide the dead with a better place in the spirit world.

This piece was finished on Monday, December 13, 2010.  I thought I would never finish this painting because it was a physical struggle.  My hand would start to drop the brush after holding it for only about 10 minutes.  The only reason I was able to complete it was because of my friend Nancy Stewart.  I shared my problems with her, and she designed a gadget out of black elastic that holds the brush on my finger.  It works like a charm, and I am easily able to paint for more than an hour at a time now.  I will forever be grateful to Nancy for her great idea.

My feelings about this painting are mixed.  While I really liked the idea and creating the environment, the physical toll it took on me made working on it not very enjoyable.  Using the brush holder during the middle of this painting marks this piece as transitional.  My style will never be as it was because of the implementation of a new tool. While I can always hope that my work is always changing and evolving for the better, I am anxious to see how this brush holder affects my future work.