The next series is "uppity women": in chronological order (but not in the order I'll create them): Hildegard of Bingen, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great.
I expect this series will not take quite as long because I'd be in my nineties!
I made a start on Joan of Arc, but got a major block caused by a lack of knowledge of materials and techniques. I created a collaged background and then painted a portrait of Joan over that. Later on I wanted to add flames and a lily. But the result was pretty awful: the collages were too dark, where the portrait covered some of the collages, those papers soaked up the paint creating a hard edges corner in the middle of Joan's face!
But today I suddenly had this great moment: a feeling of absolute clarity of where I want to go with this after a long period of indecisiveness, prevarication, frustration and uncertainty.
I was re-reading the Ann Baldwin book I mentioned earlier and I really like her style, so I decided to follow her instructions. It means starting from scratch, I don't think I can fix the earlier wor
k, but I might go a bit larger as well. I will not paint the portrait, I will not paint the lily but work with paper collages. Even to the extend where I will scan in the lily I did in my visual diary last december and use that, rather than actually painting it on the canvas. I will however paint the flames, even maybe using a modelling paste.When I think back of all the technical errors I made, I really did learn a lot from my mistakes.
I don't think I will use my newly acquired drawing skills (basic as they still are...) that may be for another time.
