No.21 They Waited In The Blue Room

Here is the painting I finished last week. It's called They Waited In The Blue Room. It took almost a month to paint and is the 21st painting in the current series which I am working on. The picture shows a woman and a cat seated in a window seat. The walls are tiled in blues and greens with various pictures - each tile is different. The woman looks out the window, out to sea where there is a sailing ship anchored. In her hand is a golden locket with an anchor on it.

The lady's body was drawn from myself in the mirror. The cat is my cat Daisy, who is my companion as I work, she follows me around the house and is always at my side. Daisy modelled very sweetly for me, she sat up straight and didn't move until I had finished drawing and taking photos. I wonder if she knew? Many items in the tiles are things from my home. The lady's dress pattern is based upon a traditional Kashmiri (India) papier mache pattern. The ship is based upon the Hindostan 1795, an East India Company ship that sailed between China and England with Tea. The locket in the lady's hand is an inscribed mourning locket which I own, dated 1862. The birds at the top of the window are the Indian Roller on the left and the Velvet Fronted Nut Hatch on the right.

A lot of my friends seem to like this painting. Some people say that it is my best to date. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I'm glad that people like this painting ...I suppose that might be because the structure is simpler than most of my paintings, less busy, as is the colour pallette. Also, I guess that a lot of people feel more comfortable with primary colours - blue, red, yellow.

The tiles were torture to paint! Details. I don't think I shall be painting tiles again in the near future, hehe! I rather like the way the birds turned out and the window shape, as well as the ship.