Since my site was down for a few months, and since I have been a haphazard Sinful Sunday contributor for a few years (after being religious about it my first few years of posting) I decided to try and catch up on one of my favorite things about Sinful Sunday, which is the monthly prompt weeks. The prompt for January 2021 was “Silhouette”. Here on this random Sinful Sunday in February is my answer to that prompt. (And, if you are interested, here was my contribution in 2014 when Molly first used “Silhouette” as a prompt.)
When I was about 8, my mom heard that an artist (a real artist!) was visiting our town and would be conducting a week long class in the back room of the local library for one week in the summer. I loved drawing and painting and jumped at the chance to go. I don’t remember much about him except that he had long blonde hair (shocking and thrilling to meet anyone remotely resembling what my mom would have called a hippie in my small, midwestern town). He taught us about the color wheel and likely many other things but my main memory is of creating a Rubin Vase. He did not call it that, I learned that later (yesterday, when I was looking it up after taking this photo). I actually recall him asking us to draw a birdbath. But the point is, you draw the vase (or the birdbath) and the negative space resembles two faces, facing each other. It teaches you about the magic of negative space. I was mesmerized and went through many notebooks at home drawing birdbath after birdbath.
So, back to the present, I had this big piece of particle board leaning against the wall in my basement and I realized the light was good for a silhouette. I took this and it immediately called to mind those birdbaths of long ago (you see the face, right?)
The title is a play on the term Rubenesque, a term I strongly identify with, inspired by another artist I love dearly. (Here is my favorite Rubens painting: Samson and Delilah, it’s at the National Gallery in London and I seek it out every time I visit.) This photo has no lush body in it, it’s just about the silhouette and the negative space, but I couldn’t resist the play on words.
