This is going to be a poster for a production of Ezra Pound's adaptation of Five Japanese Noh plays, being put on by students in Merton's 13th century gothic chapel. They will be accompanied by an orchestra and are all as though dreams within a night, with the cast singing of awakening and the coming of dawn at the very end. This is my symbolist-y interpretation. Dawn usually evokes beginnings for me. It is interesting to think of dawn as the an end, a dissipation of dreams and the unconscious, as well as the arrival of consciousness.

Painted in watercolours. In a style which is quite possibly the slowest painting method in the world. This took far more hours than makes sense looking at it now. Mostly, I didn't use frisket, so I spent a long time painting around every shape (long time!!!). All of which was very silly because this design would have looked much cooler anyway in broad brushstrokes and well composed forms, rather than fiddly details and changes of colour. But I had a cold and got into a bit of a trance and suddenly it was 7 hours in and I had been painting around so many leaves that I could not back out.

I really need to learn to limit my pallet. But I am addicted to those glowing transluscent colours you can get by washes of windsor green and blue, and permanent rose, and also here I discovered azrulean crimson and lemon yellow, both of which had run out on my pallet months ago and I had forgotten about until I replaced them for this. I also used black in this painting. I never use black. But it struck me the other day that colours can be emphasized by setting them off not only against each other but against low saturation. Black will be featuring judiciously in more stuff I think.

It is nice to paint something without any figures in. It has been a long time since I have done that. And to paint something quite surreal. It is relaxing to not have to represent faithfullly, and to treat the painting as a flat design rather than trying to simulate an environment. Lazy, but I thought I would excuse that as this is for a poster anyway.

Final thought: this is some ways is similar to an older watercolour I did: [link] Ironically, despite the huge difference in time and effort between that early picture and this one of the tree, I am not convinced that this one has the same energy that comes across in the scribbly lines and sketchy feel of the other.
And also I think there is a similarity to this very old drawing, from when I was 14: [link]
It is always interesting to find yourself unconsciously returning to imagery again and again.
Oh, and I just thought too that the bonsai is a reiteration of imagery I used recently in this: [link]