Cosmic

"Cosmic" -- 60x40" -- oil on canvas -- Margie Guyot

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted anything.  I had some health issues going on.  But I'm feeling fine now!  This painting, "Cosmic", has a lot of symbolism going on.  Picasso (the black & white cat) is lying flat-out, with a glazed look on his face, in a Cosmic Catnip stupor.  Well, I had days of that on Oxycodone.  Thank goodness all that's a thing of the past! 

My usual method of painting is to set up a still life and paint what I see.  But just try to get cats to hold a pose!  I had to refer to a photo I'd snapped.  And the night-blooming cereus (the big flowers at the top) only stays open for 1 night a year.  I'd taken photos of my plant in bloom, so that was the other photographic reference I had to use.  Everything else was painted from life.

This kind of painting (I guess you could call it surreal) is the hardest type for me to do.  I'd made a little pencil sketch before starting, but it was only a guess:

 

 

As I painted, I had to make choices about what fabric to use and how to arrange it.  A stop at a grocery store yielded a lucky find: bright gladiolas, which I love.  But how to arrange them?  I had to be mindful of the angle of the viewer: looking down at the cats.  So I had to figure out how to incorporate the tall gladiolas (gladioli?) that would make sense.  And how to position them to make the painting "flow":

 



So while some people might see the cats and dismiss it as  "sentimental schmaltz", they're not understanding the fact that it's symbolic of my healing experience.