This painting was completed a few weeks ago and is in the current show in Artworks Gallery in Reston, VA. It is acrylic and the size is 48" x 60." For the figure I went through a pile of life drawings done recently and when I found a pose that I liked I taped it to the wall and used it for reference for drawing on the canvas. I like the quiet meditative quality of the pose and the way it fills the space. This particular model is a dancer and does Yoga (she is actually in good shape, I fleshed her out a bit in the drawing). I was aiming for large simple shapes with lots of texture and layers of color. I stuggled a bit with the forward arm; she is actually rather double jointed so the arm appears to be bending back the wrong way. I tried to correct it a bit so she wouldn't look too weird, but finally had to leave it or change the whole pose. The title was not mine, Brenda, the gallery owner, came up with it. I have a hard time with titles. It seems if I don't have it from the beginning then it just isn't there. Giving it a title like that makes it about something – a story, when really all it is about is how much I love shape, color, the human form. The challenge of composition. The quiet feeling of the meditative pose.
