finding butterflies

I’d like to find some real butterflies.

For now I’m satisfied being reunited with the butterfly drawing.  During my Big Tidy Campaign of 2017 (about which I’ve written extensively), I sorted through some large oil pastels and retrieved this one — which I’ve begun reworking a bit.  And now it rests some atop the desk where a collage sits.

Putting it on top of the collage gives me ideas — or glimmers of ideas.  I may do something else with this butterfly at some juncture.  For now, though, it exists as a drawing.  I was thinking of treating its companion, the spider, in some larger way too.  Dare I exhibit the spider again?  Is it too scary?

Oh, not for brave readers!  Here it is again.

I’ve been wondering how I could do something grander and more elaborate with the spider as well.  And I might as well just do it.  Some counselors have told me that you can’t sell a big picture of a spider.  I think to myself that if the butterfly and spider are showcased together, perhaps the similarity of color and treatment will tell people that if the butterfly is beautiful, then the spider is too ….

They are similar works, but I could make them even more similar. The question of how to market spiders has weighed on my mind.  But they make movies about monster spiders!  Of course I’m not sure that those movies make very much money or have particularly large audiences, nor do they communicate a strong societal message ….

Big Ass Spider was a good movie.  Just saying.

However, the spider can also be a serious subject — without necessarily being a scary one.  A spider can be beautiful. It can be done. I’m sure of it.  Perhaps it’s my special mission to do it …?

I’ll keep you posted.  For now you won’t find my spider drawing on my Fine Art America site.  I don’t want a spider to scare all the customers away!  When it’s time to include the spider in my grand marketing scheme, we will have figured out something that has thus far eluded most creative projects and that is: how to make (certain) spiders wonderful!

And everyone is going to want one!  You’ll see!  Just wait …

 

 

 

the rain outside

It’s a rainy day here where I am. It may be sunny where you read this, but you have your rainy days too.

I love the rain: it shows us another side of life. Rain is calming. Rain slows you down. It interferes with your plans, but it makes you accommodate its plans which are Nature’s plans.

A room takes on a new character on a rainy day. Corners of the room farthest from the light assume an air of mystery. Some pictures are like rainy days. They are dark. They are mysterious and somewhat amorphous perhaps. This drawing of the koi pond yearns after that element of shadow, of light obscured, of darkness that you can peer into, a darkness that holds ideas and memories.

I feel like the rain outdoors falls onto this pond as well — in imagination — and makes ripples travel across its water’s surface.

This is one of the drawings available at my Fine Art America site.  You can find it here — especially if you’re looking for something for a rainy day —

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/abstracted-koi-pond-aletha-kuschan.html

And I’ve written about it before, here:

https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/looking-back-thinking-ahead/