Art prompt of the week: create a silhouette. Creating outline portraits of the one you love was a cheap and easy way to record their image. I'm often caught gushing about my first loves: my children, now big teen aged boys! If you know me well you know my other loves are animals. I was a baby raised by goats and St. Bernards; a young child who slept in the hay with piglets, and a young woman madly in love with her horse. When I moved away from my Cariboo farm into an apartment in a University town I bought a rat. A bold fellow who lived freely in my house, drank tea and rode around on my shoulder. It wasn't until I moved back out to the country in East Sooke that I slowly started to gather animals around me again. Brown Dog is old and graying at the eyes and sinking in the back. Frankie has me convinced that she's my soul mate, my fuzzy lover and constant companion. King Louie! A small 7 lb black cat with a crooked smile, a snaggle tooth and huge yellow eyes two sizes too big for his head. And then there is Tuxedo, the comedian! A huge 15 lb oaf that sits on every open page of your book as you are reading and chews on guitar strings.
It seemed appropriate to immortalize my two cats in silhouette, as I've never painted them before.
I wanted more than just the stark black and white outline typical of classical sillouettes. I began by creating two paper collages of old dictionary pages onto cradled wood panels.
Then I whitewashed, scribbled, painted, sanded and distressed with carbon paper. The two panels will be mounted as a diptych once it is completed.
Your romantic story is so compelling. I knew you were homesick for the farm and all your animal freinds. I remember my shock when your rat came begging a spoonful of tea from me when I sat in the early morning with my tea. You hadn't told me you had a roommate. Your art shows the viewer how much you love your animals. That includes the two legged ones. beautifully depicts the
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