New paintings, new techniques

sketch from dream
-Stephanie Tihanyi
(all copyrights held by artist)

This is a some of the work I am currently doing. I have already begun to use what I have read, about the 'mische' technique of the old masters. I am very excited and looking forward to learning more about it when I go to the workshop, taught by Prof. Philip Rubinov Jacobson in Austria this year.
This painting came from a series of sketches I did that were inspired by a dream of an angel I had and wrote about earlier. The Angel is giving the spiritual water of life from the holy cup. The angel is a messenger and it carries a message across a great distance as  

detail of painting 'Cup of Abundance' by Stephanie Tihanyi
(all copyrights held by artist)

detail of painting 'Cup of Abundance' by Stephanie Tihanyi
(all copyrights held by artist)

  seen in the far off spinning galaxy in the above right-hand upper corner. There is a lot going on in this work subconsciously, that is far exceeds my conscious minds ability to explain. Its like I have to paint it first to understand it later. I glimpse pieces and bits but have not got the time to go into it right now. For me, realizing the image, is something that has to come first. The angel sits in a lush shady tropical lowland, with waterfalls behind and a landscape that sweeps upward into forests and snow-capped mountains that merge with the stars, nebulae, and constellations of a light filled heaven. Also present in the landscape is a small local hawk, the American Kestrel, known locally here in the Caribbean as 'gli-gli, a name that came from the Caribe Indians.
It means 'fearless one', a warriors symbol and a symbol of courage. In its claws it has a small iguana. This shows that all earthly life is also bound with the law of earthly death.The angel holds out the cup, full of the water of spiritual everlasting life, its beckoning light draws in moths from all corners of the darkness.

detail of painting 'Cup of Abundance'
 by Stephanie Tihanyi
(all copyrights held by artist)

 There's is much to add in this work yet so I will write again more in time as I go. I don't know why but I feel compelled to look into the myths Sir Gwain and the Green Knight and the Holy Grail stories to explain more. The work is still in progress and still in layers of various under painting and color-glazing and not the color of the intended final colors


Unfinished stages of my painting-
detail of painting 'Cup of Abundance' by Stephanie Tihanyi
(all copyrights held by artist)
 

:

Cup of Abundance

pencil drawing -by Stephanie Tihanyi (copyright held by artist)

 

'Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.'  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi -Hungarian Biochemist (1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1893-1986)

 

Please allow me to share my drawing with you. I worked from a memory of a dream I had of an Angel sitting at a fountain well with a cup.

 

The cup seemed to contain a fluid essence from some sort of fountain that welled up from the ground into a shallow pool. There were lots of people being given out sips from the cup by the angel. I found myself at the back of the large crowed in the dark, as I had come to this place late. I hung about patiently waiting my turn and the crowd eventually diminished,  and then suddenly I was at the front. I found myself in the illuminated glow of the seated creature. I looked around the place was empty, I was the last person. The pool was now drained but the angel still held out the cup to me. The cup looked empty and I held out my hand hoping there would be at least be a bit left for me. The angel completely tipped the cup up

and one single drop fell onto my palm. I was saddened, I began to fret, I felt tears rising because I had missed out, what could I possibly get from this mere little drop. I watched in dismay as the drop fell between my fingers and began to disappear!  Oh no! I put my head forward and dipped my tongue into the remains and a golden light burst into my being, transforming everything, flooding my being with peace and comfort. I looked at the Angel and it did not look up or speak, there was no need for words, the message given was clear. The gift of transformation was equal whether one got a droplet or a whole cupful, it would have been no greater of smaller.  I was given a lesson in this dream. Its not the quantity or how much you get or are blessed with, what is important is that you grasp and understand the essence of life, demonstrated but the act of the angel (higher self) and that essence is love, which in turn gives the power of self: transformation, renewal, intuition, reflection, subconscious and purification.