With Vigour! Print

As so often, several inspirations came together for this piece, going back and forth between medium and idea. I knew I wanted to use the oval canvas board and metal leaf (the colour is called "flamed gold", and obviously it's not gold but I like the colour anyway), and while sketching it turned out the best idea was a grey figure to offset the metal. The notes trailing off her are the opening of Beethoven's Fifth symphony, possibly the best known piece of music in the world. Sadly, my musical understanding is only that of appreciation; it's fun trying to depict something immaterial and moving in a still image. Technically this was interesting because I surprised myself how many mediums I pulled together making this, starting in pencils, then going for powdered charcoal applied with water, watercolour pencils and finally even inks. I topped it with a bucket of fixative before applying the metal so I wouldn't brush off the charcoal - adding powder in water is quite enjoyable but it falls right off the paper. 25×20cm, graphite, charcoal, ink pen, watercolour pencils, and metal leaf on paper mounted to canvas board.