This painting of a woman's swirling dance movement has a very specific message to communicate. I hope that the message becomes clear with my explanation of how the work came to be.
This was one time that many insights helped to produce the art. (Most of the time a piece is a flash of inspiration, and the logical steps to get that thought into a visible form are obvious to me - this work was a process that took a little longer).
Inspiration can come from really obscure places...this painting's first influence was a conversation with Dr. Mel Gill (speaker and author of The Meta Secret) - we talked about The Hidden Messages in Water, a book written by Dr. Masaru Emoto. It documents an experiment that he did with freezing water and how it responds to negative and positive influences (Dr. Emoto's experiment used music and words). Later, when reflecting on that conversation, I thought that we can’t always be in control of the negatives or positives in our own environment, but we can choose how we respond to those influences.
An amazing animation by Ryan Woodward added another spark of influence (see Thought of You on YouTube). Ryan hired dancers to dance to a song, and then he used the dance to do his animation. I've hired dancers to pose for some of my paintings, but Ryan's video gave me the idea to start looking at some YouTube dancing. I was able to compile a bunch of sketches in just one evening of watching championship dance competitions. It made me so happy to be able to pause the dancers and draw!
The painting's background colors are shades of silvery green, and there's layers of rough texture - it's meant to represent a "rainstorm" in life - a difficult situation. I added the 3 favorite dance poses that I felt "did the job" of communicating. The first pose shows the dancer reaching up. This is meant to be the acknowledgment of a sovereign power - a request for help. In the second pose, the change is in progress. We can't see the dancer's face because there may be fear or tears there as she is in the process of renewing her mind. The last pose is the full color, happy transformation. The circumstance hasn't changed, but the woman has.
The figures had to show a logical dance progression. I’m not a dancer, but I hope I got this right! I thought it might look cool to have a line show the movement from left to right.
What I am communicating: There are times when life is difficult (misty, rough background with cool colors), but with God's help, and with peaceful, higher thoughts you can sail through those circumstances. You can even dance!
Elaine Allen
To purchase the original painting or a print, click here: Dancing in the Rain
This was one time that many insights helped to produce the art. (Most of the time a piece is a flash of inspiration, and the logical steps to get that thought into a visible form are obvious to me - this work was a process that took a little longer).
Inspiration can come from really obscure places...this painting's first influence was a conversation with Dr. Mel Gill (speaker and author of The Meta Secret) - we talked about The Hidden Messages in Water, a book written by Dr. Masaru Emoto. It documents an experiment that he did with freezing water and how it responds to negative and positive influences (Dr. Emoto's experiment used music and words). Later, when reflecting on that conversation, I thought that we can’t always be in control of the negatives or positives in our own environment, but we can choose how we respond to those influences.
An amazing animation by Ryan Woodward added another spark of influence (see Thought of You on YouTube). Ryan hired dancers to dance to a song, and then he used the dance to do his animation. I've hired dancers to pose for some of my paintings, but Ryan's video gave me the idea to start looking at some YouTube dancing. I was able to compile a bunch of sketches in just one evening of watching championship dance competitions. It made me so happy to be able to pause the dancers and draw!
The painting's background colors are shades of silvery green, and there's layers of rough texture - it's meant to represent a "rainstorm" in life - a difficult situation. I added the 3 favorite dance poses that I felt "did the job" of communicating. The first pose shows the dancer reaching up. This is meant to be the acknowledgment of a sovereign power - a request for help. In the second pose, the change is in progress. We can't see the dancer's face because there may be fear or tears there as she is in the process of renewing her mind. The last pose is the full color, happy transformation. The circumstance hasn't changed, but the woman has.
The figures had to show a logical dance progression. I’m not a dancer, but I hope I got this right! I thought it might look cool to have a line show the movement from left to right.
What I am communicating: There are times when life is difficult (misty, rough background with cool colors), but with God's help, and with peaceful, higher thoughts you can sail through those circumstances. You can even dance!
Elaine Allen
To purchase the original painting or a print, click here: Dancing in the Rain
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