Rope of Words 12 - the Woman 1

Drowsy Substrata
Once upon a thunderstorm
A lightning flash away
Rain promised at the window pane
To take the heat away.
A candle there you brought me
Though the darkness did not flee
Yet it softened at the corners
And in warmth enfolded me.

In a blanket with a candle
At the centre of my heart
All secrets can be naked
In the privacy of dark.
The feelings that lie wordless
Subterranean in my soul
With a flash are in the open
And can still remain as whole 

Megan Kerr aged 17

This was painted with words of a poem by Megan, author of A Rope of Words. She wrote the poem when she was 17 and we were in the Northern Transvaal, South Africa and we had a house with a corrugated tin roof. When it hailed with hailstones the size of golf balls, or rained hard in the afternoon thunderstorms, the banging on the tin roof was dramatic and exciting. I love the way this expresses a very young woman's feelings:

But back to the subject: How to depict the woman in A Rope of Words?

I'm making myself quite vulnerable here because I haven't got to the answer quite yet - but I have a vision of what I think would work. My first idea of collograph which looked so promising in the "head" illustration that I've been using is just not viable because I can't get the finesse in inking up the letters that I would like. (see entry 19thJuly). It is also rather too monotone for me.
I wish I could do lithograph but that is a skill which takes a long time to master and I would rather look at the skills I already have. 

Then there is the visual concept of the drawing. I realised that I've seen the woman in my mind all along as nude. She is obsessed with finding her lost words and I can complete 10 illustrations without any other figures (although I may include the angels further down the line). Only the first one would have her lover with her. If I were to give her clothing it would probably be the typical 14thC style, and I think that would change the whole thing for me.  I would like the final prints to each be a "stand-alone work of art" not a picture to go with a story. Anyway, this is a fantasy story for adults (adults, not Adults)

I remember my art teacher in life drawing classes saying that there were two reasons why we drew the nude:
1) It is only humans who aren't covered in hair and we can draw and appreciate the muscles and understand the structure of the body.
2) Any type of clothing - other than drapery - dates a drawing to a time and place because of fashion .

One of my ongoing quests has been combining letters and art. Art, not illustration, and in such a way that there is an integrated whole, not some lettering with a picture next to it.
I believe that in order to combine letters and form, they both need to have two-dimensionality to work together or  both have three-dimensionality, not a combination of 2D and 3D.  

In the painting above, I made the letters 3-D to go with the watercolour.  I actually wrote Italic letters, cut them out and hung them in a fishing net to get the effect of the title. I was absorbed with kimonos at that stage, hence the title - Kimono, kimono, enveloping sweet form. Then I wrote the rest of the poem on curving lines to give an impression of depth.

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