I couldn't move on from the previous post. I had to make one more try at that model's beautiful little face and her multi-coloured braids – this time, her head and hair only. A twist of fate, or the weather, gave me a hand.
Coincidentally, in a seemingly endless February interval when snow alternated with sleet, one of my art newsletters posted a painting by Zinaida Serebriakova. I'd never heard of her but was immediately taken with her style. It seems that this early 20th century Ukrainian artist made her name with a self-portrait she painted when she was snowed in one weekend!
Look how contemporary this is. I checked further on-line and found another of her self-portraits that presented possibilities for me. (And with a little delving, I also learned that her surname has its base in the word for "silversmith.")
Why not give that scarf a try? Here we go –
I painted over an old canvas, created a new face, added an exuberant head-dress and loose braids and…….seriously: What was I thinking?!?!
This bore no resemblance to Zinaida, and the next day I painted over that wild head-gear. Maybe I could salvage things if I called in my old pal Hashim Akid with his verve and slashing brush strokes? Well….it happened that my canvas panel was getting more than a little textured from all the paint-overs. The face that I'd hoped to resemble an Akid called out instead for a dermatology consultation.
Still – I decided to see it through.
Right. It's another in the WWIT Series. (What was I thinking?) At this point, I resolved to start all over with a new canvas and a new theme. But then I happened to notice this famous image among the reproduction prints on my bookshelf.
Did I dare? Why not?
NO!! We've all seen better Vermeer spin-offs than this. One of my favourites shows a cat with a pearl earring, and the paint-by-numbers might not be a bad idea either.
Spending so much time with these braids reminded me of a story my father once told. He was born in 1900, eventually the eldest of six siblings in an Irish-American immigrant family. He might almost have been one of the kids in this early 20th century schoolroom. Note the way the desks march closely in lines.
He'd been amused to see these old-style desks still in use in my own first schoolroom in our little paper mill town in northern New York state.
"What are the holes for?" I asked. Those were for inkwells, he explained, because in his day, children learned to write with a nibbed pen, dipped directly into the ink container. Then, trusting that I would always be the responsible good citizen that he was, even from his prenatal months, he confessed: A girl with long braids had sat in the seat in front of him – and no, he did not grab the braids and call out, "Carrots!"
Day after day, as she moved her head one way or another, he was so tempted to dip the end of her braid in his inkwell! But no, he resisted – by that time, he had a couple of little sisters of his own and no doubt realized what a disaster the ink stains would be for another child's mother faced with the wreck of a threadbare school dress. A touching memory for me, thanks to those multi-coloured braids.
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