Spark

One hand holds a quill pen; the other fires a flintlock pistol. The percussion from both echoes like horses' hooves or a thundering surf.

This painting presented a challenge in obtaining the molds. I used my own hands holding a paintbrush and a toy flintlock pistol - the type one would use when dressing up as a pirate. Since I work alone in my studio, there was no one to assist in placing the Amazing Mold Putty around my hands, but I managed anyway. After the molds were set, I filled them with gel medium, as discussed in the coin demonstration (see entry: "To Coin a Phrase" 3/4/08.)

It took FOREVER for the deep molds to dry and finally I got impatient and pulled them out. The trigger finger on the pistol mold was still quite wet and goopy. No matter, since I like the rough and imprecise accidental results and I simply formed an approximation of a finger in more gel medium and allowed this to dry free of the mold for a couple of days.

I glued the pieces onto my usual Arches printmaking paper and added some text from a reproduction copy of the Virginia Gazette in which the Declaration of Independence was published for the first time. I placed this text into the body of the horse. Four other tinier horses were destined for the waves (a recurrent theme of mine.) They swim over tea which rests at the bottom of the sea. A white feather worked into the gel created an almost-real quill pen.

It wasn't quite enough, so I added a sidebar of reproduction Colonial money and some feathers to give the sleeve of the pistol-holding hand some visual length. There is a pale face silhouetted in cork paper over the money. The lines of this small face flow into the lines which describe the waves.

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Acrylic paint on paper with 22K gold leaf, feathers, cork and tea. 60 x 30 cm.