Fireflies is the name I gave this atmospheric night landscape, painted with acrylics on a 6 by 4.5 inch canvas. I never use acrylics other than on my polymer clay miniatures and jewellery, so this was different for me.
Did I enjoy it? Massively! Was I scared? You have no idea! Because even though I had a picture in my head, I didn't know where to start. But once I painted the base for the water I started to hear the frogs croak and before I knew it, I was already there, in this magical place; where all is quiet but your thumping heart; where you can almost hear the leaves talk and whisper secrets to each other when no humans are around, and where if you are really still and you're lucky not to be noticed, the fairies appear and dance through the air like tiny balls of fire. They're fireflies you say? They got you too.
I suppose I just miss Argentina (where I grew up) very much. I miss the quietness, the smell of the grass, the frogs in my garden and the rain. I miss them a lot. At night in the summer, lots of fireflies (luciérnagas in Spanish) would fly across our backyard and I'd think how magical that was; and if you went to the country, you'd be surrounded! I miss the view from the back bedroom window, a simple garden with fruit trees like clementine, lemon, plum, avocado, bushes and a shed in the bottom. The shed was one of my favourite places, I loved everything my grandparents kept in there; from my grandpa's blue bicycle and old musical instruments to the ping-pong table, every time I turned the key and pushed the rusty door open, I'd find something new to play with and maybe a spider or two; not that I was ever keen on that.
The massive amounts of black in this painting are no surprise to me, for when I draw, black and white feels like the only option for me and I have incorporated the monochrome style into some of my polymer clay pieces as well. It's also no surprise considering the nostalgic source of this painting and what black means to me symbolically.
Have I found another artistic form of expression? It's very early to say, but ideas are already abounding in my head and I'm sure they will nudge me until they find a way to express themselves, one way or another.
Bless you for reading and I'll catch
you in my next post,
Love, Maive and Benji Boo (my long-eared assistant who kept a constant eye on me during the writing of this post from the top of the sofa and who was very disappointed in the little mention of carrots, or parsnips, or Brussel sprouts, but this post wasn't specifically about vegetables!)