Feeling blue, and Hundertwasser, too

work-in-progress

I think I have a bit of mid-Winter cabin fever.  It's been very cold here for a while and I've just gotten over the flu.  It's all made me feel kind of blah.  But I have been painting a bit, and I like this blue under-painting so much I haven't been able to bring myself to paint over it yet.

Most of it has been painted with rags and a little piece of sponge, because I'm trying to loosen up my style and paint softer edges.  The black base coat was painted with a big brush, though.  Then I added layer of off-white and another of blue, then wiped back the paint to find the images that wanted to appear.

There are lots of spirals again in this piece.  Spirals make me so happy!  I was watching this documentary (The documentary is in German, no subtitles, but it's quite interesting even if you can't understand German, and if you don't mind seeing Hunderwasser's bare behind a few times!)  today about Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and in it he talked about his fondness for uncircular spirals.  He called the spiral a sort of "cosmic navel" and I rather like that idea. 

He also said, "The straight line is ungodly, and leads to the downfall of humanity."  Since I can't draw a straight line to save myself, I might just have to agree with this. Haha!

Then on tumblr today, I found this quote of his, which appeals to my tree-hugging, nature-loving environmentally-conscious self, too.

"A person should be buried only half a meter, or two feet, below the surface. 

Then a tree should be planted there. 

He should be buried in a coffin that decays 

so that when you plant a tree on top 

the tree will take something out of his substance 

and change it into tree-substance. 

When you visit the grave 

you don’t visit a dead man, 

you visit a living being who was just transformed into a tree. 

You say, “This is my grandfather, the tree is growing well, fantastic.” 

You can develop a beautiful forest 

that will be more beautiful than a normal forest 

because the trees will have their roots in graves. 

It will be a park, a place for pleasure, a place to live."

~ Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser*

* translation:  Freedom-rich Rainy-day Dark-colorful Hundred-water, 

* his given name was Friedrich Stowasser