About the picture

This is a small painting about the ways faith or spirituality can ebb and flow, morph slowly or change radically in an instant of enlightenment or disillusion. The woman’s black hair purposely echoes the raven’s feathers and we do not know if the corvid is real or an aspect of the subject’s inner self. The raven is painted in a mostly realistic style, but one wing has feathers delineated by scratching through black paint, or darkness, to the color below, as our thoughts and notes strike sparks in the darkness of the great unknowable.

About the Paint

Although this is an acrylic, I have used techniques from my egg tempera work on the flesh tones and background sky. Using a small dry brush and tiny strokes, I brush clouds of color in many layers in all directions on the skin tones to achieve a smooth depth of color and natural variations. For the sky I still use several colors in any one spot, but my direction of strokes is almost entirely horizontal which works better when I want a cold wintery sky. Even though the eye blends the blues and greys and creams to one color, it provides far more feeling of space than one flat color ever could.

Size and Framing

Acrylic on Box Board 8 x 8″ Sides embellished with painted silver clasps and feathers

SOLD at Michel Paul Studio Gallery! In private collection