Brain Spa

Does everyone tend to reach for remembrances of childhood for comfort? I know there are color combinations, sounds, and especially smells that can transport me to times when I remember having little to care about. The grownups were taking care of everything.

And there are objects that, to contemplate, are irresistibly soothing to me. Marbles are one of them. And if the sun hits them just right, I can hardly make myself look away. As if these perfectly round orbs of colored glass weren’t beautiful enough, for a bonus, they provide the most amazing shadow cast, as stunning as the marbles themselves.

I dashed off my first small piece and called it “Keepsies,” a name taken from many of the marble games children play. I’d set up some still lifes with glass bottles and added a few marbles to add some visual interest. Upon contemplation, I found the marbles far more interesting and ignored the bottles altogether. I was happy with this 8” x 10” acrylic painting on canvas board, so I decided to go big.

The second edition in my marble series is named “Brain Spa”. I began with a 36” by 24” canvas. I sketched out the marble shapes first. Then, because the stark and sterile white of untouched canvas is unpleasing to my eye, I like to paint over it at the very beginning. I whipped up a stark yellow wash for the background with the intention of covering it with a purple-tinged white.

Upon review, I decided yellow was what I wanted in the background, so I mixed up a more mellow version of the color and applied it.

And then I started the fun/hard part: I began to render the marbles from back to front.

As I filled in the marbles, I added depth perspective by portraying the marbles farthest back with a little blur, and painting those in the foreground in focus.

I thought the piece was complete, but something just wasn’t setting well with me. I didn’t love it like I did the first one, Keepsies. It struck me as kind of lifeless. Plus, I didn’t like where I’d placed my signature.

And then I figured it out! Of course! My reference, or photograph, was of marbles on a white cloth. Here, I’ve simulated a yellow surface and so the reflections would lean toward yellow.

Realizing that, I returned to the piece and re-rendered the clear marbles with a yellow tone, and I painted over my first signature, then resigned it. I also gave the yellow surface a bit of shading here and there to imply variance in the cloth. And done. Brain Spa is ready for adoption.

Voila! I think that little bit of effort made a huge difference!

I’ll be loading up both of these new marble paintings, along with many more, and heading to Daphne, Alabama for the 37th Annual Jubilee Festival of Arts. I’ll be set up at booth 128. Hope to see you there!