As many of you know, I play the cello and it is being featured, along with my husband's cornet, in my current painting. I am quite familiar with my cello, as I have had it for about 12 years, but drawing and painting it has made me see it in a new light. I have been working on the preliminary drawing and it has been quite challenging. I have always known that the cello is an exquisitely beautiful instrument, both in sound and looks. I am finding out that it is also exquisitely crafted, and exquisitely difficult to draw.
Like the human body, it has curves and planes in unexpected places but they all fit together in such a way that I actually stood there in awe for a time. Fortunately, when I made the connection that this is not just an object but a complex creation in the same manner as the human body, I began to be able to make sense of it. A not-always-simple case of getting the intellectual mind out of the way.
So the work progresses. I have no idea how fast it will go and intend to allow it to take the time that it needs to.
I want this piece to be just as exquisitely beautiful as the subject.
It has been working well to position and remove the instruments on a daily basis in the still life set up. After all, these are working instruments and we need to practice. In fact,
we are off to play in a concert with friends and bandmates tonight somewhere down this wild coast we live on.
Have a great weekend!
-Renee
