A Few Moths
- Kaaren Poole
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
When I began this art journal spread, the only inspiration I had was to do something with green. I’d been leafing through an L.L.Bean catalog and noticed there were many green items, and so cut out a lot of small color bits. I then began cutting small leaf shapes from the color swatches. I didn’t think about it, I just did it. Apparently however the spread turned out, there would be green leaves in it.
Given that, why not use some pink paint? (Yes, a nonsequitur.) Here’ the first phase: the ugly pink stage.
Not much liking it, I quickly moved on to green paint. Here we have the ugly pink and green stage. Bubble wrap and a liner brush came in handy, as they often do.
At this point, I began to see some vague flower shapes in the pink area, so began to develop them.
I also added alcohol ink blobs in both the pink and green areas to warm it up.
Now, I began to see what it might become—the view from the nest. I imagined what it would be like for baby birds or squirrels or rabbits to have their little eyes open and look out the entrance to their nest for the first time. Hopefully, it would be immensely beautiful.
So, that’s where I’ll be going with this spread - the view from the nest.
Meanwhile, I continued to work on the pink area by adding a few moths. There’s a third one, but I haven’t painted it yet. Here’s how it looks with the two.
I wished I hadn’t gotten the body of the one on the left somewhat twisted to the side. I didn’t think that moths could move their bodies like that, but I looked it up and it turns out that they can! Vindicated!
So, where do I go from here? Because the pink area is the background, I think I have to finish it—or nearly so, especially around the edges—before I move on to the green, aka, the nest. When I work on the green area, there will surely be leaves, tendrils, and grasses extending into the pink area, and I don’t want to paint more in the pink area around them!
Probably, I’ll put details into the green area in layers, and I think there will be a lot of collage. But that’s all a ways down the road. So, for now, it’s more work in the background.
Although this piece had me stumped for quite a while, I did eventually get started and, as always, one step suggested the next. I was pleased to get the idea of making it a ‘view from the nest,’ but I think this nest is on the ground. And in that case, drawing any animals in the nest will show them from a strange angle—looking up at them as they look up out of the next! I’ll very possibly have to fudge that, as at least at this moment, I can’t imagine what they’d look like. But at some point, they’ll probably show me, so I don’t really have to worry.
I think they’ll be rabbits. Can’t wait to meet them!
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