In the Shadow of the Spider Tree.
Tags: Nomad Brush, Fresh Paint, Wacom Feel Stylus, The Spider Tree, Swans, Microsoft Surface Pro, Dagi stylus
Date: 24 October 2013 10:07:27
I don't normally paint like this, coming back and noodling around on a picture. But a: I'm not the same person I was two months ago and b: Fresh Paint does make it fun to sit and paint with.
So anyhow. The Spider Tree. I've been walking past it on my waddling commute to work for ten years and have always been fascinated by it. It grows so close to an overgrown, unreachable and forgotten aspect of a main tributary of the Thames that the branches which grow upwards are reflected back into the green stillness, making it look like the worlds biggest spider - ominously waiting for people to come close even though it stands alone in its own patch of shadow.
Near it, a couple of years ago, two swans nested and tried to hatch eggs - but the weather put paid to that hope and, for many weeks, walking past the derelict eggs became a daily reminder of natures cruelty.
Last year the swans returned, the eggs hatched, and they moved on soon after. Have barely seem them since although a friend told me the - goslings? Swanlets? Were growing very happily.
And now the Spider Tree has taken on another aspect for me. I'll carry on walking past it, for the moment (but have been looking for new adventures for a short while and think I may just leave to seek one come August whether one finds me first or not). It's no longer the enemy of the swans but a bit more omnipresent. I thought it hadn't moved but it turns out I was wrong in many ways and it allows me to give a character to some of my blacker thoughts; like a black dog re-imagined by Wes Craven. Occasionally I imagine myself floating down the leaf filled still waters towards the tree and whatever outcome that would deliver which is basically where this painting comes from. A sanguine moment of stillness and contemplation.
Will continue noodling around with it, hoping I dont overwork the painting (which is something I almost never do as a picture is rarely a continuation for me). Then again I might come back to the tree sometIme in a different picture. But for the moment I'm restful near it, hopefully not permanently in its clutches.