Candlemas

I'm out of sorts today.  I had a heck of a time getting out of bed, and then I procrastinated getting into the studio, couldn't decide what I wanted to paint, or even what media I wanted to play with.  I'd decided that I wanted to get rid of the computer-generated Om graphic on my home page so I thought I'd paint a little Om symbol.

I also decided that I wanted to experiment with Liquin paint medium, which is supposed to make the paint dry faster.  That would be a big deal for me, it'd mean I could work on the same painting several days in a row rather than waiting for five days to let the paint dry and losing my momentum.  It increases transparency, which is good in a way and not in a way.  So this was just partly to play with the medium and see what it does.  Pretty much all of these colors are transparent so it thinned them out quite a bit.

The second mini I worked on today was for Imbolc/Candlemas.  It's one of the pagan festivals and since yesterday (the actual day) was jam-packed and I had a lot of work to cram in, I didn't get to do much in observance. 

Candlemas is the festival of Brighid, the Celtic goddess of fire, spring, poetry, smithing, and childbirth.  As a result the festival is usually celebrated with fire.  I'm not really a rolling flaming wheels down a hill kind of person so I usually just observe with a few candles. 

Brighid was later canonized as a Christian saint and her festival day was turned into a Catholic feast day, and the tradition of divining the weather became our Groundhog Day.

Because the Liquin thinned the paint so much and I was working on a black canvas with transparent paints, I didn't get the effect I wanted here, so hopefully this will dry overnight and I can paint on it some more tomorrow.