Advent

Advent, a time of expectant waiting and preparation. And so it is. The little ones have no problem preparing for the celebration of the Nativity, its the arrival of Santa Clause which causes most concern. One grandchild could not understand why Santa came down the chimney to deliver their gifts, and why he does not use the door like everybody else. The mystery and suspense makes it a magical time, especially for children.

I’m reminded of the poem, Advent, by Patrick Kavanagh where he writes about adults loosing something by thinking they know everything.
“We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.”

Appropriately the colour which dominates this painting is purple, a colour I started to use a few months back. Like green, its a secondary colour made by mixing 2 primaries, yellow and blue for green, red and blue for purple. My usual colour scheme is 3 primaries (yellow, red, blue) and 1 secondary. For me, red includes Umbers, Burnt Sienna as well as the obvious reds like Cadmium Red and Alizarin Crimson. In fact, the range representing each of my primaries is very broad but I think the 3 primaries should be present in some form to produce the widest range of colours and help the ‘natural’ look of a landscape. Because the resultant secondaries are sometimes not the expected colour (here Burnt Sienna (red) and Ultramarine (blue) does not produce a strong purple) I used a ‘tube’ purple.

The colours used here were Raw Sienna (yellow), Burnt Sienna (red), Ultramarine (blue) plus Dioxaline Purple. Black and white are also used but not considered as colours.

The painting is 12″x9″ and was painted with a single long bristle filbert and a very fine nylon for thin lines. I also used a painting knife for really thin lines. I used only solvent, no medium, and the painting was completed in a single 2 hour session.

Here’ the video of the painting process.