Behind the Scenes. The Story of the "Two Hearts". Celestial Dance

Behind the Scenes of Two Hearts: late in 2024 I got an honour to paint a commission work for a lovely family.

They have beautiful Spanish style stairs in their stunning house, near which they have a space to place a painting they had dreamed about for a long time. The stairs are black and spiral shaped, hammered iron. Circular flower pattern is covering the stairs all over. The space is white, stretched from the floor to the ceiling, some 6 meters high.

I took the challenge, and just before the year ending, "Two Hearts" was born. The delivery took several weeks from me. This is the story of the the phases of the painting, behind the scenes.

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This is "Two Hearts". Celestial Dance.

In the beginning I discussed with the Lady of the House about their wishes.

It became clear to me, that somehow there should be an image of the stairs in the painting, to start with. Secondly, there should be an image of their two horses, outside on a field or something, and the horses should be seen only partially. In addition to this, there should be a part in the painting, which was crafted with epoxy, as she had seen and liked my epoxy art pieces.

No reason to mention, that the size of the painting should be large enough to fit the big white space. So, I chose a canvas 180 cm high, 120 cm width and 4 cm of depth.

The Stairs. I have modified the pic to fade the original. The wall in the middle is a natural place for the painting.

I started to "see" the becoming piece in my eyes. The figures of the horses in the middle, the Moon in the back and an iron fence featuring the stairs pattern in the front.

The other horse had lost his eye some years ago.

It had been a painful journey for him and for the whole family, of course. But they had made it!

That is why - to honour the whole story - I wanted to show him from the blind eye side, and after a little bit of thinking my suggestion was accpted. The other horse is a lovely mare, a red bay. He is a black bay.

The next phase was to choose some pictures of the horses, for me to build on. Finally, two separate pictures were chosen, and I could draw the dratfs on carton, matching them for the size of the painting. I drew them, and cut them out by the contours with scissors, placing them on the canvas.

The Lady wanted to keep the carton drafts as a memory.

Drafting

Drafting

Drafting with paint

Then: just paint!

It was wonderful to work in the family´s garage: so much room, light and warmth. I often had to lay the draft painting on the floor, and that was of no problem because of the space size! For instance, when the epoxy part was under process. I worked laying myself down on the floor often times, too.

Shablone pattern of gypsum in the making for the epoxy figure on the painting.

And to paint I chose Gamblin radiant oil colours. For the back (I had first "killed the white" with acrylics, light blue and white) cold colours to the right side and warm colours to the left side and middle and front.

A very big challenge was the fence in the front. I lost my nerves and my belief with it many times...I was completely lost for a while. It was quite hard.

Completely lost with the iron fence pattern in the front. A huge challenge to proceed.

But I memorized the view in my eyes again and again - and the advise told to me so many times: "A difficult place, even impossible, is the place to evolve the most. Do not give up! Think, what you can do better than before, and differently than before".

So I studied the stairs pattern over and over, and finally realized how I should re-paint it.

And I took a very old baby's washbasin, (from the garage), and used it as a model to draw the circular forms correctly - after that it was easy!

The second problem was, how I should fill and colour the front space, where the fence was. I visioned flowers, but it took such a long time to figure them out correctly. Finally I painted lilac roses there, and I think it was worth it.

I used an old iron baby´s washbowl to draw the shapes of the stairs pattern. Finally got it!

And the lilac colour roses came out!

As well as the epoxy element on the Moon.

I love glittering surfaces. That is why I used a lot of hammer metal and archival metal powder in the colours of gold, silver and bronze.

Finally we got ready, the painting and I.

To the bottom I added some epoxy with tile crush, from the tiles that had been used when building the beautiful house.

But how to name the painting?

I had placed red hearts on the chests of the horses.

They symbolize love, warmth, braveness, strenght, unity and hope to me.

I understood, that they also symbolized the spirit of this lovely family: loving, caring and committed to care. And a very long marriage that the parents have had. That for sure has needed a strong will to commit, too. A very high respect to that!

So, I named it "Two Hearts".

And the family accepted it.

I am looking forward to see the piece on the wall one day, wishing that it will bring a lot of joy for the viewer, for a long time.

The Lady of the House once said, that the painting will for ever stay on that wall, even if they themselves, one day, would move away from the House. So it will be.

I am so humble and grateful.

The painter and the painting on their way

Two Hearts quite ready

Two Hearts

Last but not least it was such a pleasure to have an Inspector to watch on me: the Cat of the House! He often came to visit me in the garage, and checked even my car: And the story "Behind the Scenes Two Hearts" was ready.

My lovely Inspector, the Lord II of the House.

So, that was it, My Dear - thank you so much for reading!