Sunday, October 02, 2011

The Carrot and the Stick - in progress


Ideas for paintings come to me at odd times.  Driving to or from work, in the shower, or when I wake in the middle of the night and can't sleep.  In my internal struggles in art there are rewards and setbacks.  Paintings that didn't go the way I want, paintings that sell, rejection and acceptance, on and on it goes.  For each stick blow, there is a carrot to reward.  Sometimes it goes in the opposite direction too.  I prefer the stick first personally.

So this thought of the carrot and the stick idiom stuck in my head in one of those random times of thinking too much and I knew it had to be put on canvas. 

The concept has sprung, literally, from the ground up.  I dug some carrots from the field, trying to find just the right one and then a quest for a stick that would meet my needs.  With so many trees around and lots of damage from last year's hurricane, there was no shortage of dead branches to choose from.  I finally decided on a piece from a laburnum.  The pale smooth branch with small pieces of golden brown bark still clinging to it and little knots adding interest worked well.  I also harvested more branches from other species such as larch and maple then headed to the studio to work out composition.

I played with a number of compositions with dominance from the stick or from the carrot, but finally decided that equal representation worked best. 

This is the start of the layout of shapes and values and I'll start getting into more depth and detail with it soon.  Its being painted on 16 x 20 gallery canvas in oils.

6 comments:

Tam Hess said...

This is amazing! Really unique and fun. I'm thinking this is a good concept. :)

Jennifer Rose said...

i've never heard of that phrase before, but the painting looks nice :)

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful subject matter - you could do a whole series on traditional sayings!
Kate - Taunton, Somerset

RH Carpenter said...

This ia a beautiful start - love the loose look of it at this stage. But my brain keeps saying, but the carrot should go first! ha ha

Gary L. Everest said...

Hi Jeanette,
I can hardly wait to see how this one ends up. Maybe you should call it, "The Vixen's Choice"!
Hope you're smiling!
Sincerely,
Gary.

Jeanette Jobson said...

Thanks Tam.

You must have Jennifer....reward and punishment. But a fun piece to do.

Yes, there are so many possibilities Kate. Glad you're enjoying it.

Rhonda, maybe its how I named it. Think Stick and Carrot and your brain will switch over. :)

Ha! Gary, you make it sound like an award category...The Vixen's Choice...I can imagine the entries now. No no no wipe them from my head. LOL

Hopefully an update tonight. And yes still smiling, in fact you'd probably get me fired for laughing uncontrollably at work. Lucky I work alone a lot!