Illustration Friday: Wrapped
"Mummy" acrylic on 9x12 canvas
When I was a kid I had a mummy phobia as a result of seeing some unwrapped mummies in a museum. Although it faded when I grew up, there has always been a little bit of it left, so I decided to use Emotional Freedom Techniques to see if I could completely resolve it. EFT is a combination of psychology and acupressure. Very thorough instructions are available as a free download from their website. Very interesting process; I've used it on several other issues and I'm very impressed with it.
Anyways I tapped through several rounds of EFT to work on dissolving this phobia. To test it, I googled Mummies and spent an hour or two finding out all about them from little baby mummies to bog people to unravelled pharaohs. Didn't feel a thing! And afterwards forgot about it. Didn't dream about it that night. Hey, this worked pretty good.
Then I started this painting. I purposely gave it a face more in line with mummy portraits than a real mummy because my genre is whimsy, not horror. Anyways I like the irony of a pretty face painted on the top of the whole bundle. Once I finished the painting, I started to scan it, and my face began breaking out with a bright red rash. So once more, I did several rounds of EFT tapping and took the rash down to where my face looked normal again. Couldn't help but wonder if this was some sort of coincidental body memory involved with the mummy phobia, so I factored that into my EFT tapping rounds. Turned out I remembered how embarrassed I was to be afraid of mummies. Mortified, if you'll pardon the pun. I guess the embarrassment must be gone because otherwise I wouldn't be telling the world all about this.
About the painting: it is on a very fine grained all media canvas. I glued some regular canvas on it; you can see where it's got some collage pieces glued on--the Mummy itself and the staff it is holding plus a few others. I've got one more painting underway where I glued a cutout piece canvas over it, and then no more of that. Too hard to paint it, because I tend to change my mind in the course of the painting.
I did an underpainting with violet oxide and glazed over it with pthalo turquoise, cadmium red light, and yellow ocher. When I wanted to add white I used zinc white, because it is translucent and makes a good glaze white. I'm pretty satisfied with the color harmony of this painting. And I might even do more Mummy themed paintings.
9 comments:
Ohhh...I so LOVE this work...Wonderful !!!
Fascinating story, wonderful painting - love the mummy case and the staff. I always thought it was a lovely idea to have the persons portrait painted on the case. I've always loved anything to do with horror including mummies, etc. Inspiring work, Theresa!
U-sed:
Mortified, if you'll pardon the pun.
Oh, no! Heavens to Betsy, I want to EMBRACE the pun! This IS Valentine's Day...no? /g/
Hope your day (and art) go well.
Theresa, this piece is so wonderful, I'll have to try to paint my phobias too, if this really help I should have a couple good paints in my hands soon.
Your paint has so many particulars to watch and to come and see again, also if the subject is unusual it's so pleasant. Good work!
Your phobia and your art skills are good marriage! The result is something so unique and intriguing. But that's really something you've delivered often with your work isn't it? OMG the thought of painting my phobias scare me just thinking about it lol! It might be a good challenge!
I want to thank everyone for your comments.
Re. painting my phobia, I couldn't have done it without using EFT. That's the whole crux of the matter. First I collapsed the phobia using EFT. Then when I didn't have the phobia anymore, I was free to paint it--and talk about it.
Theresa, you're working so well that I had to tag you, so come to see what I wrote about you in my blog.
http://loredanamariotto.blogspot.com/
Loredana
Theresa,
I love this! I've been checking it out for a few days - keep coming back for another look :o)
I've always been fascinated with mummies and sarcophagi.
I can just wander around in your paintings forever...
beautiful illo! ;]
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