To find inspiration for our A Summer of Walk project, which we have initiated together with Sara Mosberg Iversen on Instagram, I became more attentive towards what I see around. Through my walks in between one done job task and the next, I looked at the urban and natural space, people, seashells, trees and flowers and I became more attentive to look at the surroundings around myself. I noticed that in spite of the fact that spring and summer are associated with blooming of flowers and growth of fruits, we tend to forget what happen in between, that is withering, drying out and death. I find this thought particularly compelling, poetic and of course scary: In order to make the fruit, the flower must die! But the way it dies is spectacular... Visiting The Japanese Gardens in Broby (https://dejapanskehaver.dk/en/), I discovered this little jem in the middle of the island of Fyn thanks to Sara. The gardens are a little corner of natural Japan, just half an hour drive from Odense and it has become a favorite inspiration place for me. During my ongoing summer walks at the garden, I became especially fascinated by azaleas, a bush from the genus of rhododendron, which gives beautiful flowers of different colours. Azaleas' blooming process is just amazing, the flowers are born as lovely little blooms, all gathered together in a flock. Afterwards each individual flower blooms into colourful bells, some more delicate and elegant, other louder and vibrant. Each and all of them open up to the air and sun beams, revealing small dendrites, the pistils, moving out of the petals like tiny eyes and hands trying to reach out at the sky, the sun, flying by insects and the passers by. At the stage of full bloom, azaleas are simple breathtaking, they look like dancers expanding from a stage.When I look at fully bloomed azaleas, I imagine dancers partaking into a lively and energetic Martha Graham piece, wearing vibrant unitards with wide pants, like in Diversion of Angels or into a poetic and lyrical piece, like Jerome Robbins' Dances at a Gathering, where female dancers wear airy pastel coloured dresses. Moreover, azaleas have a special value for me, since my grandma used to cultivate them in vases on her balcony. If that was not enough, azaleas becomes even more petic while withering. Their petals fall down, just like the skirts of Jerome Robbins' dancers after a pirouette and bending their torso down to the ground. Everything in the azalea's little body, appears as finishing a contorted dance, rotating, contracting and releasing into a final exhausted breath. The most amazing organic forms emerge through thousands of contorted but light folds. The death of an azalea is dramatic, breathtaking, the pistils always heading upwards, depending on the angle of observation like dancers' legs stretching high up to the sky, fingers eager to touch, eyes eager to see, optimistically reminding us of the fruit and seeds that have to come. There is not life without death, it is so hard to swallow but that's it, the merciless cycle of life that disregards the contingent needs of individual creatures, just like in Leopardi's poetry. However, more hope has to come, as old flowers die out, new flowers are blooming, giving hope for more beauty to enjoy. The whole plant develops as an organism changing skin with the season, old cells die, new ones are born. Here you see my latest azalea painting and my reference picture. As you can see the painting is focused on the withering flower on the top left of the picture. As I walked through the bushes, which are by the way taller than me, I could not believe my eyes focusing on the different forms that the flowers were forming while dying. In this case, I saw like an elephant figure, with a tiny trunk moving upwards and the petals forming the shape of the head and and ears bending downwards. I found this elephant shape extremely poetic, being the elephant a massive yet gentle animal, it made me think of the gentleness of the flower as well as its sturdiness in its fight against the elements. Very recently there was a storm across Denmark, which has mercilessly swept away flowers and leaves around, as if it was winter again. But here they are, still holding on their stem and lifting their little trunk up in sign of triumph: they are still there waiting patiently for te fruit and seeds to come.
Here is a little taste of the work I am planning, to explore the stages of bloom of azaleas, based on the pictures I have taken visiting the Japanese Gardens. Thank you for passing by and leave a "like" if you feel like ;) All the Best Bertie
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I started writing this post about 2 weeks ago, but then a lot happened, including exams in the university. Everything is in bloom and here is the flower of the June page in my Botanika calendar, Aquilegia, which from a certain perspective look like a group of birds gathering together. In making this painting I focused on trying to show my perception of the birds, now I am taking my art to a new direction and I must thank an old professor of mine who is also a painter and suggested me to let the shape talk its own story, instead of imposing a story on my own. In this way, I can turn my painting into an inquiry process and I can be more authentic to my subjects, letting the story unfold from their forms and colours. I am still attached to this piece, I am proud of about the shapes and the colours I have created. In my new paintings I am taking a different process, in which I focus on the natural forms and see where these forms will take me. Often new forms appear, which I have not predicted, like in painting these Azaleas, which I call Three Golden Flames. In this painting I tried to dive into the forms of the flowers, focusing on negative and trying to forget I was drawing flowers. The stems were particularly interesting, they looked like antennas or heads with elongated heads looking around in the world.
Technically I am still exploring, I must say that probably I have overdone it and this has created a bit of restlessness and confusion. So I was actually struggling with this. It seems as if the first petals I have painted were getting too dark, but at the same time I liked the burnt like effect. I cleaned up and work further at my contrast, focusing on the middle and light tones of my reference photo. I wanted the colour to breath through the petals and the leaves, as if these were burning living flames. I was frustrated in the start, but then I found a sweet spot working with light washes of wet-on-wet, so I added some water to specific areas and then a bit of colours in layers, and I let the colours blend on the paper. Then I added the final details wet-on-dry, so I simply painted those details, basically the darkest line work and shadows on dry paper. I think I found kind of an identity for my technique and a more rigorous process, watercolor is a bit like the rebel technique, where you cannot control things completely, it is a dialogue with
This is what makes it interesting, but also challenging. The colour spreads where the water is, I love to start with the water as I feel it helps me guiding the colour where I want it to be. In this sense, when you paint in watercolour you have to plan more than when you paint with acrylics or oil. You need to know in advance which areas will you leave white. The white are precious areas that you need to leave untouched, incontaminated to balance the painting. And then you add colors in iterations in the middle tone and dark areas. Some painters would work on the darkes after having defined the lighter areas. For me this requires a little too much planning, I tried and it stresses me out, maybe because I am Italian and I am very messy ;) I want a more spontaneous process in which the painting to guide me as in a dance improvisation, evaluating step by step where the darkest tones would fit better. In this way, painting becomes a process of meditation and creative improvisation, imagining and reimagining details and the whole, all the time in iterations. I want to be able to renegotiate what is going to happen in a continuous discovery of what the dance of the colour spreading on the paper, through the water will suggest me. Water is like my way to build paths for the colour to reach the areas where I wish it to be. I imagine the colour as a paper boat that needs to be carried by a subtle current, which emerges from the water I put on the paper. However, I do not create the current, the current emerges on its own as a tide, originated by the dialogue of the water with the paper texture, for this reason I found that I prefer cold pressed to hot pressed paper. Cold pressed water is like the bed of a river, it is marked by shapes, holes and bumps, like rocks laying on the bed of a river, as the water is poured through the brush on these holes and bumps, the current is created and the colour can flow through the page, living its mark. Here you can see the final work and a few details, to show how these details have a life on their own. I hope you will enjoy this post and thanks for passing by Bertie :) |
AuthorFreelance illustrator and painter. Archives
May 2023
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