Flying Girl Is Blue Skies Through the Clouds, or That's How the Light Gets In

Flying Girl Is Blue Skies Through the Clouds, or That's How the Light Gets In
4/9/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on Mokeskine Paper, 5x8"

Ring the bell that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen

This Flying Girl is based on a couple, or three, inspirations. The first is my first Flying Girl of the series. Not my first ever, mind you... that was in college, but Yellow Sky, Strange Land. And then there is the totally optional theme of Color from Creative Everyday. The color scheme... a very limited on of Raw Umber and Pthalo Blue was inspired by Sarah at greenweeds. That's the combo she uses. My standard blue/brown combo was Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna. So I thought I would try the new one and see what happens. It makes for warm grays, doesn't it? And cool blues.

Once I painted it, I was looking at it, trying to make sense, and I noticed how the warm tone of the moleskine paper seeps through, and then the faint white birds painted there... well I just started singing the lines from the Leonard Cohen song posted above. And then it came together in my head.

I've been painting a lot of clouds lately, using a lot of gray... not that it's necessarily a bad thing. The rain comes, it brings needed water, it brings shade, it brings green things growing, even if we associate rain and clouds with gloom and sadness. Personally, I love a cool day. I love the way the clouds build up in the sky, in so many different ways. I love a storm coming and the wind blowing and the lightning flashing. I love a downpour on a hot day. I used to walk down the street in New York singing through the storm.

Like Lenny says, "that's how the light gets in."