That's it I think. My big painting Perfection and Necroamoria is finished. I learned a lot from it. One lesson is that painting small things and large things aren't the same, and that painting the same thing at three times the size needs more than just scaling up and bigger brushes. My usual technique of adding the details in the glaze layer didn't work as a result as created lots of frustration. I'll keep the final painting secret until I can scan it.
Meanwhile I've also finished Nine Ladies Weeping at the Death of a Phoenix today (detail shown), a painting that I've had in progress since December, having started it in April 2008. I painted the phoenix spontaneously today because the picture needed something in the middle that was casting the light. The original plan called for a flame made of surreal objects like the clouds in 31st Century Crucifixion, but in the end I painted a few curls in yellow white and it became a fascinating object to me. I couldn't quite work out what it was but I liked it. After some time I realised it was a dead phoenix, which is the perfect symbol for this painting which is all about the passing of stone age England and the possible redevelopment of the stone circle depicted.
