My watercolor muse has been visiting again. Ah, sweet hours with music and color and line and the peace of unbroken concentration. My husband had to remind me to eat....
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Flying with the Fairies |
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The story behind this watercolor, inspired yet again by my lovely and entertaining friend Anita, is that she found herself enchanted by a huge, fuzzy, furry flying object (HFFFO) in her beautiful garden. She posted about it on Facebook and a friend of hers, Stan, who's a phenomenal photographer, put up some photos he'd taken of another HFFFO, which turned out to be a hummingbird moth. I did some Internet research to find more closeup photos, and the ones by
novembergale at Wonderphotos are the BEST.
We'd never seen anything like it - the fuzziness of its tiny feathers are charming. Anita and I got together to extol its virtues, and here's how the conversation went -
Anita: Doesn't it just make you think of fairies! Jen, you've got to paint this.
Me: YES! I can just imagine a little elf friend going for a ride.
Anita: Me too, but how would he stay on?
Me: Well, he could hold onto those fluffy antennas.
Anita (eyes big, hands pressing hard on her cheeks): I don't know if I would want someone tugging on my antennas if I were a hummingbird moth.
Me: Do you remember when you were a kid and you'd ride your bike and hold your arms out to the sides just feeling the wind?
Anita: YES!
Me: That's what the elf will be doing, I'll do it. I'll paint it. Perhaps my muse will find a way for him to hold on.
The result - when I drew it in pencil, the little elf's feet were nicely tucked under where the wing joins the shoulder on the hummingbird moth. But while I was busy painting the colors, he untucked them. Fairies can be a bit mischievous that way, you know. I don't think his friend will let him fall off, do you?
The drawing took about 5 hours and the painting another several. I lost count. The size is 7 x 9 5/8 inches. Nothing like a nice round number, eh? That's gonna cost when I frame it. Am sooo running out of wall space in my house.
What fun : )
Namaste