"Shards Of a Summer Evening" Painting

This work was inspired by my viewing, many years ago, of a number of photo-micrographs of various objects and substances. I was very impressed by the vibrant colours I saw, and was also immensely attracted to the idea of interpreting the smallest scales of structure in the (MUCH) larger; seeing the “macro” expressed in the “micro”, and vice versa. I had this image in mind, to work with, for years. When planning this painting I had deep blue sky, perhaps with pieces of a broken rainbow in it, very much in mind. The creative process was quite different from my usual work and accordingly represented a real journey out of my comfort zone. This concept required me to work with clearly delineated lines instead of dripping or pouring paint, as I’d done almost exclusively before. I therefore traced lines and shapes onto the blue background with chalk and a ruler, then filled in those outlines. When I finished the chalk tracings, a dearly beloved friend took one look at the canvas and said it made her feel like summer evenings, which was exactly the impression I wanted to create! Very heartening indeed that the idea was coming through, even before the colours had been applied. I gave the painting its title from her observation. More than 2 months later, the work was completed. It was the first time I've actually applied a brush (a number of them, as well as paint marker pens) to so much of a large-scale painting, with no flicking, dripping, or spattering. It was an amazingly fulfilling experience, start to finish, to create "Shards Of a Summer Evening"; the idea is of a dusky twilight, the sky going near-indigo, with rays of sunlight shining through in different hues and “splinters” of night breaking through. I hope the viewer can see, experience, and feel the painting as an evening of transformation.