It's a jungle out there

So much to explore.  So many trails and by-ways.  So much to learn from the explorers who have gone before, some of them appealing, some of them not.  And here I am, trying to blaze trail on my own through the on-line artist-of-the-week program and deliberately get ahead of the game so I'll have time to work on my own stuff.

Early in the summer, as I looked ahead on the curriculum, I saw Frida Kahlo coming up in October.  Mild knots in my stomach.  Kahlo is coming into her own now from the feminist perspective, but I've had a mild aversion since I read about her decades ago.  Her story and that of her off-again/on-again husband Diego Rivera are so tragic and rather ugly that I was permanently put off. 

So, what to do?  As I was mulling this over, I happened to be in Canadian Tire's garden shop one day and spotted some vibrant seasonal patio pillows....PARROT patio pillows! 

There, among the plants, it all came together for me:-- Kahlo's self-portraits often feature a jungle-y background and creatures like monkeys or parrots.  Of course, I snagged the pillows (a two-for-one sale that day!).  Back in the studio, looking through my sketches, I came across a long-ago pose that I'd captured from memory:

By the next morning, things had evolved to a preliminary sketch and a proposed title, "Frida and I Went Shopping."

By now I'd embraced this project as  "my stuff," and I decided to try to overcome what I call my "colouring book syndrome" -- a tendency to work in flat, clearly contained colours.  (Does "tendency" equal one's "style"? - that's for another day).  I set myself the challenge of painting the first layer of everything in its complementary colour and tried to work with looser brush strokes.

 It was an interesting strategy and downright fun as it developed.

Here's the final version, with its final title, "Frida Gave Me These Parrots."

What would she think?   I couldn't resist giving her a temporary (taped-on) peek in the window to check things out:

I've heard that parrots like to live in flocks, and certainly there was a congenial air in the studio as these new guys arrived to keep company with the colourful parrot thermometer a friend just knew I would love to have.  I guess if they live solo, they can sometimes go a little squirrely.  (as in Flying Squirrely?)