Happy Memorial Day! A lot has happened since releasing the last painting ("Fairy Lockets"). The most important of which though is that Michel WAS FINALLY APPROVED for a permanent residency visa, and after a long wait, will be able to move to AZ soon. We're both excited and relieved that the immigration process is almost over. Just one more interview to go, and he'll be able to stay in the US year round, and the long distance aspect to our relationship will come to an end. We've been waiting and planning for this for several years now.
The first thing we'll be doing when he gets here, is finish building a studio I started building in my (nearly nonexistent) free time several years ago, allowing me to at long last move all my art supplies and work tables out of my house. It's been less a "home" and more a chaotic studio since I started Dizzybear Creations over ten years ago. After we're all settled in the new studio and have the house all situated, he'll be taking over several of my jewelry lines, so I'll have more time to paint!
It's been getting harder and harder for me to find time to paint, as the popularity of my other lines have continued to grow. I've been teaching Michel how to make all sorts of jewelry and hand crafted items over the last 4+ years, he's been a quick study and has a good eye for detail. At some point we may put more of it online, but we'll see. I think doing arts and crafts shows, and finding more stores to carry my line would be more enjoyable, as we'd get to travel all over.
When I get a little spare time, I'll put together a video of everything I make, as most people have no idea of just how long that list is. The items that you see on the webstore only represents maybe 10% of the kinds of items I make.
This 4th painting: "Water Nymphs" in the new Day of the Dead Fairy series was actually a bit challenging to paint, but fun, as I got to experiment a lot. It's the first time I've ever painted still water, with near mirror reflections on the surface. Took a lot of trial and error to figure it out.
During my most recent "painting furlough", I spent three weeks up in Montreal, and instead of working on new paintings, all I had time for was doing touch ups on paintings that I thought I had finished months earlier, until I looked at them again, and decided they needed more work. After doing the major retouches on "Fairy Lockets", which took most of my three weeks, I was happy to see that the only thing that really needed work on "Water Nymphs" was the flowers, which were a bit cartoonish and easy to paint over, and the painting needed a little more shading and detail in spots. Also I had painted her face a bit big, compared to her body. I was able to fix everything in 3 or 4 days of work. I've included a side by side comparison of the painting before I started doing the final touch-ups, and the finished product further down in this blog.
In my older paintings, I haven't spent much effort or time in coming up with painting titles. "The Mermaid", "The Pirate", The Vigilante", "Winter Wonderland", "The Duel", etc....... With the fairy paintings, I'm trying not to use the word "The", and I'm trying to be inspired by research I do upon completion of the pieces about the items I portrayed in the paintings, which has actually proved to be really interesting.
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| Matted to fit 5 x 7 Frame |
Like how the hollyhock flowers featured in the first painting "Thrice Lucky" are a favorite home of fairies. The overall history and folklore of poppies, and how the symbolism from a famous poem lead to the poppies being used as the symbol of veterans. The story of how bleeding hearts got their name, and the connections between those flowers and fairies. I don't let myself do the research on the various aspects of each painting until after I finish the piece so it wont affect what I paint, only the titles of the paintings.
Some people will wonder why I pluralized nymphs when they see the title of this latest painting: "Water Nymphs". While researching the various things in this painting, I discovered that the word nymph is applied to several things, and I just happened to paint three different things in this painting that can technically be called a nymph.
The most common use of nymph is a mythological spirit of nature imagined as a beautiful maiden inhabiting rivers, wells, springs, and other waterways.
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| Matted to fit an 8 x 10 Frame |
A second use of the word nymph, are the flowers. Water lilies grow in ponds, lakes, and along the edges of streams and their scientific name is Nymphaea, derived from the Greek word "nymph".
Water lilies are associated with rebirth and optimism as they return to waterways after the rains, even if they dried up the previous season. The water lily also symbolizes fertility, sexuality and creation. White water lilies symbolize peace, purity, pleasure and spiritual enlightenment. In ancient Greece, white water lilies symbolized modesty.
Water Lily Symbolism
The symbolism of the lily can be traced back to antiquity and plays a significant role in various cultures across the globe. From beauty to enlightenment, they represent emotions and ideas. Here are a few variations of the symbolic meaning of water lily, based on different cultures and ceremonial practices in various countries around the world.
In ancient Egypt, this flower depicted the unity of people in the country. The lily (symbol of Upper Egypt) was teamed with the papyrus flower, which was symbolic of Lower Egypt. It was used to denote a united country. The two flowers are used as well to represent the cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth and the Sun. Ancient Egyptians also had a high regard for the blue water lily, which they regarded as a representation of rebirth and as a symbol of the Sun God, which emerged from a primordial water lily.
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| Matted to fit an 11 x 14 Frame |
Coming to the Asian continent, the water lily has a completely different symbolism. Since it produces blossoms and fruits simultaneously, it represents universality. In the context of religion, it is considered to be sacred by the Buddhists and the Hindus.
According to Buddhism, enlightenment is associated with this blossom. Different colored water lilies have different representations according to Buddhists. For instance, a red lily connotes love and passion. The iconography of the purple lily is mystic power, whereas the white lily is mental purity. The highest deity is represented with a pink lily, and blue lilies are often associated with knowledge.
In the spiritual arena of Hinduism, the concept of resurrection is symbolically denoted by the water lily. This is because at night (or during darkness), the lilies close their blossoms and with the first ray of the sun, they open. It is also a symbol of purity, because even though the plant grows in mud, the flower is pure and free from blemishes.
Water lilies are often mistaken to be lotus flowers. The most striking difference between lotus and a water-lily is in the center part of the flower. The lotus flower contains a barrel shaped seed pod and has stamens that are filamentous unlike the leaf-like stamens of the water-lily. Of course, the most commonly cited difference and the one which will help you decide which plant it is from a distance, lies in the leaves of the two plants. The leaves of lotus rise above the water level whereas the leaves of water-lily are found floating on the water surface.
The same is nearly true for their respective flowers; the lotus flowers rise above the water and remain there from flower to seed, but the water-lily flowers start life above the surface of the water, but as they mature and have been pollenated, the flower stem contracts and coils, pulling the flower into the water where it will finish its reproductive cycle floating on the water. Earlier in the creation of this piece, I had only painted the flat lily pad leaves, but I added the lotus plant leaves on the right to make the painting a little more interesting, visually.
The same is nearly true for their respective flowers; the lotus flowers rise above the water and remain there from flower to seed, but the water-lily flowers start life above the surface of the water, but as they mature and have been pollenated, the flower stem contracts and coils, pulling the flower into the water where it will finish its reproductive cycle floating on the water. Earlier in the creation of this piece, I had only painted the flat lily pad leaves, but I added the lotus plant leaves on the right to make the painting a little more interesting, visually.
The third item in this painting that could be labeled as a nymph, at least in an earlier stage of its life, is the damselfly. When I painted this, I thought I was painting a dragonfly. I had heard the term damselfly before, but I always thought "damselfly" referred to female dragonfly. It doesn't. It's a completely different kind of insect, though related to the dragonfly. The most notable difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly are the wings. At rest, the wings of a dragonfly remain flat and outstretched, while the wings of a damselfly close together or fold back along the body.
Something else a bit interesting I found while reading, in adult form, frogs obviously eat damselflies. When the damselfly is in its nymph form though, it feeds itself by eating other aquatic insects and the tadpole form of frogs. Hope you enjoyed the information!
I'm going to be really busy over the next several months, so the next painting wont be released until July 4th, 2015.
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| www.dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com |
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