Original artwork description:

I created this composition in two versions - one (this one) for sale and one as a commission. A friend wanted a birthday present for his mother, who is from New Zealand and interested in astrology. Her star sign is cancer, hence the crab, and she had happy memories from her childhood of red crabs on black sand on the beaches of New Zealand.

The painting is in pigments, hand-ground in egg yolk tempera over a gold leaf ground, on an oak panel prepared with gesso. Using the sgraffito technique, the paint has been scratched through to reveal the gold beneath and create the pattern along the crab's limbs and around its shell. Coarse vine black pigment has been ground into a mixture of resin and linseed oil and painted over the gold background to conjure up black sand.

The painting has a fixed, black frame and the depth given in the dimensions includes this frame. The painting is initialled on the reverse and has a d-ring attached so that it is ready to hang.

Materials used:

Oak, wood, gesso, gold leaf, egg yolk, pigments, oil, resin

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