Thursday, June 3, 2021

Surrounded by Memory

This man was sitting by himself at the diner. I liked the cool colors of the walls and his jeans, in contrast to the warm-colored notes of his scrambled eggs and his face.


The painting is gouache and watercolor in a watercolor sketchbook and it took about an hour.

The words written around him with a fountain pen are a short poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.


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4 comments:

  1. G.June 3, 2021 at 11:01 AM

    Love this, thank you for sharing! How did you decide what to write with this? Is it a poem you were thinking about at the time, or do you seek it out to pair with the piece?

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  2. G.June 3, 2021 at 11:01 AM

    Love this, thank you for sharing. How did you decide what to write with this? Is it a poem you were thinking about at the time, or do you seek it out to pair with the piece? I write quotes and song by my sketches, and it's cool to see how other artists are inspired.

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  3. James GurneyJune 3, 2021 at 11:14 AM

    G, I just thought about how, when we're alone, we're often living in a bubble of our memories, and that poem sprung to mind. It was short enough to fit in a circle around the man, as if enclosing him in his own thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. nuumJune 3, 2021 at 9:12 PM

    I always wait for the moment when James shows the painting to the "models"...
    Thanks, Master.
    Paulo-Rio

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