Tuesday, October 14, 1986

R14 A Dream of Rose










R14 A Dream of Rose
9 x 13" designers opaque watercolour on paper
Private collection

An idea for my novel 'Raven'. One of the Nuclear Sequence, the first watercolour that was meant to be part of the series.

With a painfully quick inhalation he realized that it was Rose. Rose, covered with feathers, or some sort of cloak. Out of a dusky tattered hood her white face with heavy brows drawn down over deep eyes, stared. In a moment he knew she would lean over him with a blunt musical utterance, a throaty monosyllable. Incomprehensible.

-Mary Weymark Goss (from the unpublished novel 'Raven')

Monday, October 13, 1986

R13 Nuclear Picnic










R13 Nuclear Picnic
24 x 36" oil on panel
Private collection

Using the watercolour field sketch (R8) I did this summer, I worked up this idea. I had the idea for a ‘raven picnic’, and wanted to put in more blue and white dishes, carrying on the themes of R7, 'Nuclear Tablecloth'. I had a lot of fun with the colours, the green against the red/orange and the bright yellow.

Someone commented that it was impossible to look at the painting as a whole, that the two sides of the background refused to come together. That bothered me for a while, but then I began to enjoy the effect. It’s one of my favourite paintings of the series.

She watches the wing patterns closely, as they jump and fight, dancing around each other with their beaks open.

Sometimes she runs with them, in a single line through the grass, arms spread, with long fingers curled at the end, in the painting with green trees draped over the horizon and the red and white checked cloth on the grass. She has been waiting to have a picnic.

-Mary Weymark Goss (Journals)

Sunday, October 12, 1986

R12 Raven Angel













R12 Raven Angel
5 x 5" ink on paper
Private collection

Saturday, October 11, 1986

R11 Raven and Woman













R11 Raven and Woman
5 x 5" ink on paper
Private collection

Friday, October 10, 1986

R10 Raven feeding Woman













R10 Raven feeding Woman
5 x 5" ink on paper
Private collection

Raven feeding Woman: I was interested in the image of the bird giving food (ideas) to the artist, and there is a connection with the prophet Elijah being fed by ravens. However, this image, which is one of my all time favourite ink drawings, has been widely misinterpreted, and so a little spoiled for me.

I had been drifting for some time, quivering on a wingspan, suspended between concept and creation.

I waited.

As soon as her eye was in mine, I fell down upon her, dark vision.
Before I entered, I took her tongue, so that she would have to use her hands…

-Mary Weymark Goss (Journals)