What are these people doing? They're a little gang I met up with at Summer Camp way back in 2011 (ten years ago!!!) – and they mostly play quiet solo mind games, dreaming the impossible dream…kinda like me. I've often thought as I'm working on a painting that it's like a challenging game…Is this the right move? Can I bring this off? Is too much going on here – or not enough?
When it gets into game strategy, there's nothing to match chess – a game I was never very good at although I love the pieces, the more fantastically designed, the better. A year or so ago, a school friend (notice I didn't say "an OLD school friend") sent me a wonderful photo of her husband and grandson deeply absorbed in a chess match – using the family's classic Staunton pieces, which were also the choice of other serious players I've known.
I did a quick sketch from her photo and always wanted to do more with this twosome.
Coming across the photo again about a month ago, I decided the time had come. But seriously: It would be utter madness for the likes of me to attempt both figures, the chess pieces, and the chessboard in perspective. How about just The Husband…and the chessboard? Let's try that with a quick splash of paint.
Well….this might work. At a cross-continental distance and sight-unseen (by me) the grandpa is a pretty handsome dude, suitable for the cornerstone as it were.
Then I literally went back to my drawing board to prepare some templates for the six representative pieces that would fill in the meditative space on the right side of the canvas.
Here's the preliminary plan with cut-out pieces:
And here's the midway point with colours established:
As I cleaned up one day, I thought again that some of my best works are the Accidental Abstracts created on the palette.
Okay, here's the final version – in which I couldn't resist showing the possible directions each piece could move to place The King in checkmate.
Because my friend and her husband are one of those grey-haired couples who just keep on being **Too Sweet** together, I've titled the painting, "Dreaming of His Perfect Mate." (copyright 2021)
This time, let's invite 20th century American artist William Faulkner to have the last word. He was writing about writing but this applies equally to art – and maybe even to chess.
"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good."
No comments:
Post a Comment