I don’t paint without purpose….I usually develop a story from whatever I’m working on and then I paint. Sometimes I write the background story and other times the story is written for me. Case in point, “R U A Fan?”
I found this canvas lying by the trash. Someone had thrown out a painting and while I think all art is beautiful and special, this was not. The canvas was a gigantic 40×50, and it has a huge sun on it. I got the impression someone made it for their grandmother and when she died and the family tossed it. Nevertheless, it was there and it was a perfect canvas.
I dragged it upstairs and 4 layers of gesso later, I covered the original painting. Well…most of it. Whomever did this used chalk to make the sunbeams. I tried everything to remove them to no avail. So I had two choices: find a way to use it as it is or toss it. I chose to use it. I didn’t want to paint a sunbeam. I looked at it for weeks and came to two possible paintings: One was a peacock; the other a fan. I’d painted peacocks, but never a fan. I really love the way this came out and I saved the life of a doomed canvas!
RU A Fan?