When the Party’s Over ...

Here we are, finished! When the Party’s Over .....! 

When the Party's Over! 

40cm x 65cm 

This is very symbolic of how I'm feeling at the moment ....... everywhere you look the world seems to have gone crazy! To make things worse I even managed to break my favourite kitchen knife, which has served me well for about 27 years. I'm sure breaking a knife means something doom-ridden so bring it on! 

While painting this, I experimented with another piece of household equipment, a magic eraser sponge. 

Artists are very experimental when trying to blend pastels, using chamois leather, foam insulation, tissue paper and of course pastel blenders. I don’t know why I decided to give this a go, perhaps because I found a box of them while rummaging in a cupboard. And how did I find it? Well, it did mange to get a lot of pastel into the sanded surface of my support and the sky looked very smooth, perhaps a little to smooth for me, as I prefer a painterly look. By working over the smooth I could of course get my usual marks in place; working in lights on top of darks you do have to be careful that everything doesn’t get muddy. Interestingly, you can see how the sanded surface has rubbed away the edges of the magic eraser sponge (that’s what usually happens to your fingers!). 

This painting really reminds me of some lines of a favourite poem by Thomas Moore (1779-1852), ''The Light of Other Days'', 

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead, 

And all but he departed!

I'm always amazed by the German language, it has such poetic words for so many emotions, how I feel at the moment is called ‚‘Weltschmerz'', translated it means world pain, yup that sums it up accurately! Pity I can’t rub that away with a magic eraser, maybe I'd have better luck with a G&T. I'd say it’s worth a try :))