An Art Work A Day

Here is another on of my paintings which comment on sociopolitical issues. Unfortunately way too many women in the world are for all practical purposes gagged and can not safely speak up for themselves or their loved ones or be politically active.

Should this painting sell, then the whole amount will be sent to Equality Now a fantastic organization working for women's right around the globe.

Gagged,
acrylics on paper
24x32cm
$100

p&p worldwide is FREE

Today's painting is inspired by all the lonely grieving women who in several parts of the world have no grave to attend to because her loved ones went "missing" in wartime and might still be among all those unidentified in mass graves.


Grief,
acrylics on paper
27x35cm


This painting is on its way to the framer for proper mounting and framing before the next exhibition.

Some days it is OK to be just who we are and look how we look. On other days it is harder.









Wringing Hands over Obesity, from the Made Just For Fun-series,
acrylics on paper
27x35cm
$100

P&p worldwide is FREE

Something about the pregnant female figure intrigues me and I therefore ended up imagining this trendy career woman at a meditation class.



Pregnant in Meditation, in the Made Just for Fun-series
acrylics on paper
27x35cm
$100

p&p worldwide is FREE

Olala,
acrylics on acrylics paper
7x10cm
nfs at the moment



I am experimenting a bit these days with making the mounting and things like that be part of the expression. Here is one of the ideas I am playing with - using mounts in different ways.

My daughter's comment on seeing this painting was that she would like me to make a series using the topic "blind". Maybe I will if my muse will allow me. Keep visiting my blog or DPgallery and you will get to know.

Today I have spent most time washing and putting out poison to try to get those ants that keep eating on our holiday house. Hopefully there is nobody else eating besides the mice that I saw feces after and the ants that I saw running around. I will travel up there in a few days again and see whether the problem has improved.

Today's painting is another of my social commentary ones.


Blindfolded by Fashion,
acrylics on acrylics paper
30x41cm
$100

p&p worldwide is FREE

In January one of the painting that is marked with donated for equality now was sold. Here is the letter I got about that. I hope to be able to sell more for this fantastic organisation. I put all of the letter here except my postal address so that anyone of you who are more interested could get all this contact information.

EQUALITY NOW New York: 250 West 57 Street, #1527, New York, NY 10107, USA ▪ Tel:+1 212-586-0906 • Fax:+1 212-586-1611 • Email: info@equalitynow.org

London: 6 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6BU, UK • Phone:+44 (0) 20-7839-5456 • Fax:+44 (0) 20-7839-4012 • Email: ukinfo@equalitynow.org

Nairobi: PO Box 2018 KNH 00202, Nairobi, Kenya • Tel: +254 20-2719-832 • Fax: +254 20-2719-868 • Email: equalitynow@kenyaweb.com

EQUALITY NOW WORKS FOR THE CIVIL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD February 21, 2008

Dear Ms. Vogsland:

Thank you so much for your contribution of $100.00 to Equality Now. With your help, we are making a real difference in advancing our common vision of a world in which girls and women live free from violence and discrimination.

In 2007 we launched two campaigns in support of women in Iran and Afghanistan, deepened our commitment to stop the global trade in human lives by launching the Fund for Grassroots Activism to End Sex Trafficking, and succeeded in getting a strong New York State law criminalizing human trafficking passed. In the coming year we will continue our work in these and other campaigns, including shutting down sex tour operator G & F Tours, working for the passage of a law in Mali against female genital mutilation, and demanding justice for the women who have been abducted and murdered in Mexico.

We could not pursue our global fight to end human rights abuses against women and girls without your continued generosity. Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,
Amanda Sullivan
Director, Women’s Action Network

I was so happy this morning because finally I could see the sun and finally it happened when I was home so that I oculd get a few proper photos of my art.




















In the Corner,
medium: oil on canvas
size: 18x24cm
I was unsure a long time whether I wanted to sell or not but ended up selling after a year. This one I would have liked to be one of the paintings representing me if I should be interviewed again or have something written about me in a book. THAT is how satisfied I am with it.

This time I managed to rip myself away by steely will power and take photos along the way. LOL. You might notice a difference in colour on the examples. Neither is correct. the original has the crimson red of step two but the brightness of those that looks more orange. The original has NO orange tint. Problem is that I either have to use the flash and then I get that yellowish orange tint or not use flash and lose the brightness of the painting. I will try again tomorrow in natural light. Unfortunately due to rain as well as it being winter proper daylight has been hard to find.

Step 1
For this painting I did not want the white canvas as the base to paint on These kinds of artist canvas panel boards are primed with acrylics before you buy them - sometimes twice or three times. That means that me using acrylics for another layer before starting with the oils works fine.

Usually I make it all black - several layers, but sometimes I thin the black out and use it for first sketches to get an idea of the composition. here as you can see the idea is for a corner of a room with an abstract person sitting in the "shame on you"-corner like they used to have in old schools and in old ways of child rearing.

I also indicated some the corner itself and some texture to the walls and the floor. Whether that would be the end texture or shape of the figure, that is not decided at this point.

Neither is the style completely decided. I might at this stage go for a more realistic figure and focus on right porportions and similar and make it fairly realistic. Then I would be left with choices as to how detailed to paint the face and what clothes and all such things.

The next challenge was what colours to go for. If I wanted the realistic look, then the walls and the floor had to be realistic too and if I wanted to continue the texture of wall and floor wooden paneles like the ones you find in houses from around 1950 then I would have to chose wooden colours.

Step 2
In the end I decided to go for more symbolic than realistic style and focus on the emotion of shame and feeling exposed and humiliated and alone.

So what colour symbolises that? Of course red is the colour of such feelings. We get warm and we turn red in the face and on the ears.

I therefore covered the entire painting with alizarin crimson red after a thin layer of painting medium.


Step 3
I then started working on the background and began with the walls. Most people nowadays and especially not teachers do not use this method any more even though some might use other means to humiliate their students.

Anyway, this being from the "old days" I wanted to make the background like any very basic schoolhouse in the country in the old days. That is untreated or painted wooden panels. Most of my house which is from the 1950s is made by using this narrow wooden panels.

The way I wanted to create this effect was to focus on painting with a narrow brush downwards over and over and the last layer one downward stroke at a time - each stroke covering partly the previous one. That way I indicated that structure. Again if I had chosen the realistic painting style I would then have had to show the twirls and holes and all which makes such panel looking great when unpainted. But again the walls is not the focus - they are only supporting the symbolism.


Step 4
Same stage in two photos one taken with flash so that you can see the details better. Then of course you get the reflections. Wet paint is hard to take photos of, especially when there is dark parts too.

The floor was decided on in very much the same manner as the walls. Normally such panels would have been paralell to either wall but my focus is the corner so I chose to make them diagonal and kind of point towards the corner.

Step 5
Painting the figure itself. I am now firmly decided on making this painting symbolic but still at this stage I could have changed my mind and done the figure more realistic. I am very happy I made the choices I made because This is EXACTLY how I would have wanted it to turn out. Now I really got the pay for practising chinese brush painting where every brush stroke counts and can not be erased. One bad stroke and I would have had to scrape of and wipe off and start all over again. I felt great when I saw the result.

Final Step
Now I had the biggest challenge of all LOL How much "piddling in my puddle" as an artist friend calls it would I do. The time had come to fix the tiny details. The problem is that a tiny tad too much piddling and the painting is overworked and loses its freshness and is basically nearly ruined if you're unlucky. One of my weaknesses is my need to just fix a tiny bit more and a tiny bit more. Today or rather tonight :-) (03.46 here) I forced myself not to do that.

The final decition is where to put signature, how big and what colour to use. You want it to show clearly but also not to interfear with the painting etc etc. What is left now is to put it somewhere safe from 3 cats fighting and similar while it dries.

Again two versions here to allow you to see the prosess better.