Hopscotch is one of my favorite paintings… the original hangs in my living room. I’ve painted it twice, that first one in 1998 and then I painted an identical Hopscotch inside another painting, so that one is a smaller partial painting of Hopscotch over a chest of drawers in a flat kind of still life scene. I used to hang both in the same room as it was always a conversation starter when someone noticed that this painting has that painting in it.
The inevitable follow-up question was always the same, before or after they read the quote by Jane Welsh Carlyle from 1845, which I had adhered a printed copy to look framed on top of the chest of drawers. Who is the man in the locket? The woman obviously me… awe, that is my muse… was my muse. Sigh. I don’t hang it anymore.
The quote? Should I pull it out… look it up, or dare a misquote? A paraphrase? I know the ending as it was my post-divorce (my another life) motto: “If I have to lead another life in any of the planets, I shall take precious good care not to hang myself round any man’s neck, either as a locket or a millstone.”
I tried to take precious good care, not let myself go there… oh well.
For some odd reason, I decided to revisit Hopscotch for the 5×5 donation… paint it again, in miniature, but not exactly the same as the original Hopscotch. It is geometric, overlapping circles, so draw it first, then paint it in, like a coloring book technique, simple as can be, just color in each section with paint.
Alas, artistic ideas ignore physical limitations.
My spacial relationships have been somewhat “off” since that little stroke stole my right eye last year. Quick count… broken glass and coffee cups? If I can’t trust my eyes to set a beverage far enough onto a stand so it does not fall off with I let go of the handle, how can I land the tip of a micro-brush exactly where I want it to go? I tried… dab, line, woops! Okay… well, keep going, clean it up, try again.
I finally gave up. Here it is, after I painted white over everything.
And here it is… the colored pencil version, ready to pop into the mail.
Hopscotch Revisited, 5 x 5 inches
It looks different than the original Hopscotch, more like a quilt by repeating the same colors. I do have much better control over the pencils, maybe because it is a dry medium. Pencils requires more than a light touch to lay down color. Still, I’m not really to give up the paints.
Thanks for looking!
Barnbees 