Mourning Joy (Part 1)

I am not going to delve into the story behind this painting just yet. That will come.

Today I went to St. Nicholas' Church just up from the Clock Tower in the middle of Brighton. I wanted to get some photos for an idea. The painting will be surreal with elements from both "sides" of the life & death divide.

After picking up some art supplies and walking home I loaded the photos to see which would assist in my composition the most. In addition to today's pile of photos I also had to dig out the statue of an angel I'd shot in Spain and I had to find a model for the other body located in my imagination. I fiddled about with these 3 items in some computer software (after a bit of trial and error with several shots). To be honest I was a little alarmed at how moving the "sprite" bodies about over my church yard scene looked like a bad Monty Python animation. The end result is, as you can see below probably even worse but remember, the image I have resides in my head and this picture is a prop to help bring focus to it:

Monty Python turns on his grave.

Ordinarily the above "montage" would not make it beyond the small round filing cabinet on the floor.

Now I need to use this to help me get the picture in my mind on to a canvas so here we go:

The essence of the idea is now there.

I like most of what I have here. You can probably see that I've modified my angel. This will not be the last of my modifications. I do not feel that the tree, brought in from the photo, is what I want but I will hold off culling it for now.

The tree gets the chop.

 At this point you can clearly see the surreal elements taking over. I already like what I see although I've painted over my models leg but that will soon be cleaned up.

My model still has a mucky leg.

 You can see that my angel has taken form. Now it's probably time to sort that leg out on the model.

Leg cleaned up a bit but no clothes.

 Time for supper. I hope to finish this of tomorrow. I've said that before.