“I like you; your eyes are full of language.
(Letter to Anne Clark, July 3, 1964)”
This was a commission piece.
I received a special request from a mother who wanted to gift an artwork to a speech therapist who had been working with her family. 7 elements had to be included:
baby
lion
monkey
snake
ice cream
steam train
aeroplane
Thankfully my style of artwork permits imaginative free association, so I was more than happy to accept the challenge. I knew I wanted a mottled background, so I used scraps of paint leftover from previous paintings to tint the canvas background, then when that had dried, used a round sponge to scrub over some Australian Sky Blue in vigorous circles.
I started outlining the main elements with a small flat brush and burnt umber. After that dried, the fun bit began where I could start to block in the main colours and introduce shading. I wanted a friendly looking lion, so Mr Lion looks rather benign.
Suddenly I realised that I had forgotten the snake!! Ooo. Mr Monkey looked like he could have done with a friend, so I decided to loop Mr Snake around his tail. (My dad commented that this would be highly improbable in real life, but what the heck, it’s not realism afterall.)
I was hoping that my young child in the plane would suffice for the element of baby, but it turned out the client really wanted a very young baby, the kind who is still in diapers and needing milk. Had to sleep on that for another day, and managed to alter the painting without too much angst.
Taught me a lesson. Never assume to know what other people are thinking.
Happy client, happy artist, and hopefully happy recipient.
“There are, perhaps, a great many languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning.”
