As the Storm engulfs - oil on canvas

Here is the final version of the skyscape I have been working on for the past few weeks. It is called "As the Storm engulfs us" and is oil on canvas 910mm x 610mm.

This is the painting that originally frustrated me as I didn't get one big work period to do the sky so it was done over a lot of half hour sessions. By the last few sessions, I actually began to like working on it over a period of time as I felt that I really was able to build up and almost sculpt the clouds. You can't see that so much in the photo but is much more obvious in real life. It also meant that I used a lot more layers than normal as I found I had to keep on painting over areas so that I could get the effects that I wanted.

This is a fairly dark skyscape as my husband pointed out and I think the reason it turned out that way is due to what has been happening in our lives recently. There are changes in my family which have made me sad and my stepson's mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer so all that stuff has been top of mind recently.

I'm not going to go into the meanings of the poem itself which is the text down the bottom except to say that it is about my marriage (and when I read it to my husband he said "that's deep"):

We are a plural
Made singularly
Entwined we keep tightening
These bindings we choose
Outside batters and storms
And bits tear from us
But we keep entwining
And tightening by choice

And before I go, please note that you can now subscribe to new posts by email. It's that box on the top right hand side, just put in your email address and then each time I post something new you get it via email in your inbox. I use Google Reader to keep up with the blogs I read but I know a lot of people don't use readers and prefer email updates so I have finally got my act together with this.