Original artwork description:

This is painting belongs to my series, 'Abundance', which celebrates the quantity and variety of life on this planet. Here, the focus is on the small creatures that crawl about our feet in the grass - creatures which are everywhere but which often go unnoticed. Each animal is painted in minute detail, with every hair on the caterpillar's back picked out by an individual brushstroke.

An enormous, golden sun hangs over the picture, with golden grass growing up towards it. Both have been rendered in gold leaf, laid onto red bole using the water gilding technique and burnished to a deep sheen. In the sun, the gold leaf has been punched with thousands of tiny round marks, each produced by a single hammer tap on the punching tool, to make it sparkle. This contrasts with the smooth, glossy stems of grass.

The deep red on black background creates an intimate space underneath the sun where the animals are crowded together, crawling up towards the light. The intimate, enclosed feel of the painting gives the sense that the viewer is lying in the grass, spying on the animal activity around.

Traditional techniques have been used for the painting: pigments were hand ground in egg yolk and water to make the paint and this and the water gilding were applied to an oak panel prepared with white gesso.

The painting is signed and dated on the reverse and has a d-ring attached so that it is ready to hang.

Materials used:

Oak panel, gesso, gold leaf, egg tempera paint, pigments

Tags: