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| Haphaestus Original Paleolithic-style Rock Painting by Lynne Gerard |
For this delightfully shaped Paleozoic rock plaquette, I thought for sure a large flying bird was waiting to wing its wait out to the surface. With just water on my brush, I quickly sketched first an owl and then an eagle to gain a feeling for which bird it was that I thought I was listening to. But nope! The rock rejected such ideas.
The more I sat with this rock admiring its peculiar shape and wonderful series of ridges and textures, the sensation of an architectural bas relief sculpture came to mind.
I looked up some examples of bas relief from my massive old book on the art of Michelangelo and online images sources and did some quick water sketches on the rock. It felt very receptive to such an idea.
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| Kevin Droski The artist's husband and muse |
My next step was to photograph my husband for my model (not wanting to copy Michelangelo!) and things moved along rather fluidly after that until it came time to create the architectural embellishments on either side of Kevin’s visage.
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| Preparatory ink sketch |
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| First laying in of my handmade natural pigment paint |
This rock is not symmetrical - it is unruly, imperfect - with a wonderfully organic sense of wabisabi. I rather had to abandon my idea of a symmetrical bas relief sculptural effect and just follow the dictates of the surface of the rock. What you see in front of you is the result.
How strange both sides appear. Wondrous strange! As for my representation of Kevin, he now looks truly like some kind of ancient god. Given the organic and cosmic embellishments that had come into being, I thought surely this must represent some kind of God of Creativity, if there was such a thing.
I asked Google. Google told me YES and presented me with a good number of articles about the Greek god, Hephaestus. Quite the story on this imperfect, scorned, outcast god who became much beloved for his creative metal-working - so much so that festivals were created in his name as he was regarded as the patron saint of the creative arts.
While I cannot say that the mythology of the Greeks represent true stories - you can be sure that the process of how this rock painting came to be is as true as the sun is bright.
Hephaestus / God of Creativity
Original Paleolithic-style Rock Painting
$750
now available in the gallery