Ophelia / Boat Shoulders

click to see it larger

40" x 40" oil & ink on birch panel

Ophelia. Name derived from Greek οφελος (ophelos) meaning "help". Her name also belongs to Hamlet's lover who eventually went insane and drowned herself. However, the similarities end there; this Ophelia will not meet the same fate as Hamlet's lover. The sea dare not drown her, she's one who would drown the sea. She posed for me once. Phantom trade winds made her hair dance gently around her eyes, caressing the sails on the boats that rest delicately on her shoulders. The air cooled as it passed over her skin, carrying aromas of salt sweetened by the sea flowers that grow in her wake. Perhaps she would suffocate without these ghostly sea winds, without the salty air to sustain her. 
Then there are her eyes. Those two left eyes. Oh, how they hardly blinked, how one remained locked upon my gaze. Her delicate tattoos serve as a futile warning, if you can read them, you are already too close. 
She grew impatient and I could feel the unease in her, how the earth felt unstable beneath her feet. Some would call her a prisoner to the sea, though a wiser man would know the sea as her prisoner.   

As usual, I first primed the exposed wood with GAC 100, did about three coats this time. I prefer to paint directly on to the wood, as it makes blending colors easier, but having the outside portions primed makes it forgiving should any unwanted paint get on the wood (living with a kitten is sometimes dangerous). Detail was done in various colors of ink.

 Tattoos drawn with black watercolor pencil. 


Translated:

"Ad infinitum"(Latin) 

"to infinity without end"

 -

"y de que nadie oyera las canciones de navegantes que a veces cantaba bajo las estrellas"

"and that no one should hear the songs that sailors sometimes sang beneath the stars"

From Gabriel García Márquez's short story Un Señor Muy Viejo Cona Alas Enormes (An Old Man With Enourmous Wings) 
(Thanks to my lovely Morgita for her vast knowledge of romantic poetry)


 

above is the framed drawing of the original "Boat Shoulders". The blueprints for this piece. 
 

 

messy tubes of oil paint, little bottles of oil medium and a box of hooks, nails and screws.


Hope you like her, she'll be on exhibit in January for my solo show at Vessel. 
Prints coming soon.


xoxo
C

Boat Shoulders painting - Work in Progress

Well hello Monday, meet Ophelia.

Here she is, halfway there. I'm hoping to finish her this week. And fast, because she's getting impatient. She feels naked without her boats and tattoos. Is she staring at you too? Cause she won't stop staring at me.


  

It all started the other night when Joe and I were playing silly games on our iphones. One minute we were playing Trivial Pursuit and then I sort of saw this painting in my mind, the painted version of my drawing Boat Shoulders. I saw it much differently in my head than how it's turning out, but that's how it is. You see an image, then it flits away as quickly as it arrived. I'm left with a memory that I begin to form and shape in to a painting. I never really considered my drawings to be conceptual versions of paintings, but perhaps they are beginning to be. Anyway, I have this strange love for the nautical world and I think it is rapidly becoming a common theme / direction my work is taking. 

Here she is at an earlier stage (Friday).

I seriously can't handle how beautiful this wood is. When the light hits it just right it seems to glow.  

❤,
c

WIGS

why not

oh, and Moss of Aura - Swilling

Boat Shoulders

She's TUFF. And you can buy her here.

India ink and Micon pens on brisol vellum paper.

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Thanks for the drawing suggestions yesterday, check back for some more birds, sea animals, zebras and ponies ;)

P.S. What's a pirates favorite fruit?
(Okay, so I have a really dumb answer for this one. Let's hear your pirate jokes!)