A busy day after a full day's painting on Sappho. Yesterday was long and tiring, and I saw only mistakes and flaws in Sappho. There has been certain progress in my painting, year on year, but I feel a leap is needed, and leap I both must and will. It's amazing to some extent that I managed that 50x75cm work in a day; this is one sign of my recent improvements. I'm unsure what do to. I'd like to paint it again, but I painted the Roman Legionaries painting three times and difference between two and three were very small, and it's likely that some good elements in one version are lost on another.
I've spent today revisiting Love is Dead and Love is Alive. The former has been revisited a few times. The real rose thorns broke off often, so the frame has been patched up many times over the years, and in 2019 I repainted the centre panel, though it was as unsatisfied with it as with the first version, for different reasons. I've vowed to paint a third version. Here are the first two versions:
Of course, in real life the paintings look better, softer. The 'frame' isn't changed much, apart from fixing up some of the thorns, most recently in 2019 with some Paraloid resin, to secure everything in a good way. The Polymorph vines are very strong, but the material is sensitive to heat, amazingly flexible and resistant to glue (and paint). I also attached the whole thing to a block of wood because the mirror plates to fix it all to a wall in an exhibition were too delicate, too close to the delicate frame itself. I'd do many things differently, were I to make it again, but, it remains a pretty object and one of the best things I've done (or did), and will be a certain masterpiece with a masterly centre panel, and if so, a masterpiece that will have taken me more than a month of full-time hours.
I'd always planned it to be one of a pair, with 'Love is Alive', and I bought a second frame at the time, and added vines too. That version was destined to be white and light, a living version of the above. Today, as well as restoring Love is Dead, I made preparations for Love is Alive, cutting and preparing painting panels, cutting mounts and a 6mm MDF backing piece of wood.
Painstakingly traced and cut with a fret saw. I'd perhaps not use 6mm MDF now. it flakes rather when screws are added, and is very moisture sensitive; but this is one of a pair and it should match the original in size and look. So I'm in a mood of work, to finish and complete, to produce, improve.
