Thinking about art

Girl thinking
black marker on bond paper
10 x 12 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

Words crop up in the paintings of several
artists I admire. I love how Bob Burridge
places words on some of his paintings,
and Larry Rivers, used words in interesting
ways. In Florence we saw the work of
Fra Angelico, and some of this paintings
had words trailing across the sky, hundreds
of years before the invention of the airplane
made that an actual possibility, but he also
put the names of saints in their halos, and I
liked that. I've long been a fan of gold leaf,
and wanted to put halos on everyone, but
now I am thinking about putting words in
the halos. Not religious words, just
the words that struck my fancy at the time.

I did the drawing tonight from a photo of
a lovely model I've used for quite a few
paintings. I was just playing around
thinking about what I want to start to
paint. But I'd like to put a halo around
her head and write the word "thinking"
on it. That would be a secular halo,
like the one around the moon.

Have a thinking-it-through day