Youth and age

Despite the wild winter weather almost everywhere, we know we'll cycle through -- right?  The bulbs will be up soon and before long the flowering shoots of a favourite BC wildflower of mine -- "Youth-on-Age", so called because tiny new plants form at the base of the mature plants.

Big sigh.  Aging is an inevitable conversation topic these days among....people my age.  Call it art therapy, but I decided I'd confront the topic head-on.  It's another project that's been steeping since my trip to New York and my longed-for visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I was trying to pack as much as possible into a few short hours there, but every few steps I'd stop in my tracks to be amazed at something that wasn't on my short list.  "WHAT!!!  Rodin sculptures!!!"    I could only gulp and stop and take some photos.  This small study brought back a whole thought train:

I'd seen the final full-scale work reproduced in a Rodin book years ago and was so touched by its story.  The sculpture is variously called "The Old Courtesan", "Winter", or the one I prefer: "She who was once the helmet-maker's beautiful wife"; in French, "La Belle Heaulmière" ("The Beautiful Armouress.")

Rodin's version of a wrinkled sagging old woman was inspired partly by a poem of the medieval French poet (and criminal) François Villon.  It's pretty raw -- as is the sculpture -- but have a read.   Rodin evidently knew of the poem, as an educated French person would, and one day an old woman walked into his studio with her own story.

Seeing the Met's small study, I was reminded of the time I'd sat across from a much older woman in a medical office waiting room -- noting how beautifully groomed she was and what a fine-featured beauty she must have been in her day.  And so, about the time Valentine's Day rolled around, I decided to paint her from memory.

 

I made several attempts to be wrinklier (a word?), which made her look like The Night of the Living Dead.  I also realized at about this stage that I must shoot my paintings-in-progress under a better light.

At last I called it a wrap, borrowing the title -- "She Who Was Once the Helmet-maker's Beautiful Wife."

 Could she be the grandmother of my punk kids?  Maybe.

 Now what about that wrinklier face that looks back at me from the mirror?

Well, I've decided that if you didn't begin as the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife, you don't have to worry about falling off from your old standards.  The Tomboy Vibe has stood me in good stead -- the pulled-down cap and the patched-knee trousers are just as true to type in my 70s as they were in my youth.

François Villon must have had a thing about lost beauties.  In searching for the Armouress poem, I discovered that the pre-Raphaelite poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti had translated another of Villon's poems on this subject (scroll down in the link for the poem).  Rosetti's big contribution perhaps was to coin the poignant term, "the snows of yesteryear." 

And right on cue yesterday in my photo gleaning project, I came across "She Who Was Once a 55-year-old Tomboy":-- two photos in an envelope labelled, "Feb 2000 - 18 inches of snow!"    -- the snows of yesteryear.

Scare-EEEEEE!

 

Oh, dear.  How did I get from Botticelli to this?!?  I'd better begin at the beginning to explain.

The on-line art course I enrolled in last year offered the structure of a master artist a week, followed by what was usually (to me, at least) an uninspiring video demo.  Early on, I decided to do my own thing with each week's artist.  When the week came around to Botticelli, I did a spin-off of his Venus based on Sara, the lovely young waitress (wait-person! server!) at the pub where I meet friends for coffee.

 

Like the fairy-tale princess, she is as good as she is beautiful -- but my Botticelli emulation was neither.  No matter.  Fate issued me another chance when later last fall, Sara rushed to show us her brand-new tattoo -- you get to see its full face sans the identity-protecting glasses I've installed on Sara's.

Well.  How could I resist?!  What's more, in my rambles through the internet, I'd come across a portrait demo made by an artist working in acrylic (as I do), and using sequentially seven colours in a linear format -- with surprising success.

Just maybe, if I'd stuck with that, I'd have had a different outcome.  But I decided to follow another artist's suggestion to begin with an underlayer of yellow ("the easiest to cover up in successive layers") and still another artist's suggestion to work atop a base layer of acrylic medium.  Here we go:--

I made one good decision at the outset:-- there was no way I was going to try for her lovely smile.  And the yellow underpainting wasn't a bad idea.  But the acrylic medium was  a Big Mistake.  Think plastic -- 'cause essentially that's what it is, and its slick  surface worked constantly against me.

Not far into the layout, I was out of control.  The Artist of the Seven Colours had started with violet lines, and mine were just too definite.  When I followed his further suggestion to make corrections in white (a common technique with acrylic -- in small patches), it all became horribly wrong.

 

Okay.  So I had to begin to make the rest of the painting as dense as the face and hope things would somehow even out.  As I worked on the tattoo, it became dense enough to resemble a carved wooden sculpture!

But I still wanted to see what I could salvage.

And at last, with apologies to Botticelli and Sara (who knows nothing about this)(nor does Botticelli), I called it a wrap.  Here's "At the Pub - Sara's Tattoo."

Then I went back to my collection of quotes from and about artists and found an encouraging nudge from author William Faulkner:--

"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good."

So I'm making progress in a circuitous way, and I'll even offer advice to those couple of friends of mine who keep saying, "I can't even draw a straight line."

It's easy.  Really.  A simple four-step process:--  (1) Choose a snowy day. (2) Slip under the neighbour's fence and hit the ground running.  (3) If you must turn to avoid an obstacle, do so without guilt.  (4) Barrel on through!!