Monday, April 6, 2015

"Sunset Glow" (Red Poppy Fairy), the 2nd in the "Day of the Dead Fairy" series




Hope everyone had a great Easter!  I worked most of the holiday weekend getting hundreds of prints matted and ready to deliver and send off, including the second in the new "Day of the Dead Fairies" series: "Sunset Glow"

 With Michel's immigration process, potentially coming to an end in a couple of months, I've been working really long days, 12 to 16 hours a day, trying to get ahead of orders, so when the time comes, we have some free time to get him settled here in Arizona.  

 I hadn't realized how engrossed with work I've been until Easter afternoon.  I was working on finishing an order to deliver, and finally finished it around noon.  I loaded everything into the car, and drove over to the shop to deliver it.  I arrived, and noticed the store was closed.  As was most of Old Town Cottonwood.  I was a bit confused, and didn't truly realize it was Easter, until the dj on the radio said "Happy Easter" as I drove back home.  I figured I'd take the rest of the day off, being a holiday, but only managed about an hour before I got back to work, packaging more prints, making more jewelry, and building a trophy for the fantasy hockey league I'm in, as I volunteered to build it months prior, but hadn't found the time to do it.  I might be a bit of a workaholic, but I do enjoy what I do, so it's a good thing.  

 Easter Sunday was the final day of the Fantasy Hockey League competition, and as I put the final touches on the trophy, I found out I had won the trophy, yay me!  

 This was one of the most fun paintings for me to paint, and definitely the most detailed so far.  The hairs on the poppy stems alone took forever, but was actually a lot of fun to do.  

 While I was preparing this painting to be printed, I noticed something rather peculiar.  When I zoomed in to do digital touchups, I was surprised to see I had painted something that looked like my husband and I taking a mirror "selfie" with a flash going off in the larger of the spots on the butterfly wings.  

 Before I send a digital file of a painting off to the printer to the printed, I've made it a habit of having Michel check everything and make sure I didn't miss any touch ups.  When he was going through the digital file for the painting, he saw it immediately too, and thought I had done it on purpose.  I hadn't.

When working on paintings, I typically refer to photographs, as I did for the butterfly wings.  When Michel asked if I did it on purpose, I immediately looked at the photo I was working from to see if it was just a weird coincidence.  The basic pattern is the same, though I made it rounder, but because of color choices, and the layers of color washes that built up, it became an unintentional, abstract portrait of the two of us, though my face is less present and blends into the rings, as I'm in the background.  I've posted the picture I was working from, with a detail of the spot in question, and a close up detail picture of the spot from the painting, as well as a picture of Michel and I.  It's really pretty weird.  I'm going to wonder for a long time if it's just a huge coincidence, or a subconscious mind thing.  Either way, weird, yet awesome.  

 I've always been drawn to photographs and paintings featuring fields of red poppies.  Arizona tends to be a bit warm and dry for many varieties of poppies to grow wild, other than the orange colored "California Poppy"(which will be included in an upcoming painting).  I've yet to see a huge field of red poppies in person yet.  It's on the "to do" list.  As is getting in the middle of a monarch butterfly migration.  

A few things I learned about poppies, while researching and brainstorming to come up with a title for this painting:  Poppies have long been symbols of sleep, peace, and death.  In Greek and Roman mythology, poppies were used as offerings to the dead, the red color variety in particular.  Typically placed on tombstones to symbolize eternal sleep.

Since the first World War, the most recognized symbol of the red poppy, is to commemorate soldiers who have died in war.  Inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields".  A line from which inspired the title of my painting.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae  May 3, 1915

McCrae wrote the poem during the early days of the Second Battle of Ypres.  A young Canadian artillery officer, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed on 2nd May, 1915 in the gun positions near Ypres when a German artillery shell exploded near him.  He was serving in the same Canadian artillery unit as a friend of his, the Canadian military doctor and artillery commander Major John McCrae.


As the brigade doctor, John McCrae was asked to conduct the burial service for Alexis because the chaplain had been called away somewhere else on duty that evening.  It is believed that later that evening, after the burial, McCrae began the draft for his now famous poem “In Flanders Fields”.  You can read more here: http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields-inspiration.htm

Fields of the red-colored corn poppy, known as the remembrance poppy, are often found growing early in the season in freshly sown corn and wheat fields.  The poppy is a prolific seed producer, but grows best when the seeds are close to the surface.  The seeds can lay dormant within the soil for years, until the proper temperature and growing conditions are had.  Appropriately, if these poppies are present in an area of battle in which large artillery has been used, and the ground in that area has been ravaged by explosions, it will often be followed by a banner crop of the remembrance poppy, as the tiny seeds that have traveled too deep into the soil to grow, will be brought back up closer to the surface due to the explosions.  

As stated in the facebook cover photo, there's a way to get a
FREE print of the painting "Sunset Glow": 
Now through April 14th, 2015,  all orders of $35.00 or more at the Dizzybear Creations webstore, will get a hand signed print of "Sunset Glow",
matted to fit a 5 x 7 frame included FREE with their order.
A $9.99 value.
There will ALSO be a drawing for a 
FREE print on the Dizzybear Creations Facebook page, for Liking, Sharing, +/or commenting on a post.  

 1 entry for "Liking"
1 entry for Sharing
and 1 entry for Commenting
____________________
= 3 entries

The drawing will take place on May 3rd, to correlate with the 100 year anniversary of the writing of "In Flanders Field".  You can find the contest post by clicking <HERE>***


Click here to be taken to the Dizzybear Creations webstore.
The next painting will be 
released on May 5th,
Cinco de Mayo


Thank you in advance for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   


It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

P.S.  The first prints of this painting has a little mistake on the included story card, only a few made it out of the studio before I caught it.  It listed the date of McCrae's poem as May 15th, instead of May 3rd.  I hand corrected a few story cards as well.  So if you have either the story card with the 15th, or a hand corrected 3, you have one of the very first prints I packaged from the First Edition prints.  :-)

***In the event the link to the contest post doesn't work, you can cut and paste the following:
https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations/photos/a.199369476769839.45006.146857072021080/951944124845700/?type=1&theater





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