Original artwork description:

This egg tempera painting on a gold ground is an explosion of winged life, crowding out of the panel, propelled by the energy of a blazing sun. Carefully rendered animals, like the bee in the bottom right, share space with fantasy creatures, like the green beetle in the centre, and stylised ones, like the blue tit and the red dragonfly. Equal beauty is found in a humming bird and a crane fly, a butterfly and a mosquito.

Punch marks in the gold leaf ground form the sun, which sparkles in the upper right. The punch marks become gradully less dense as they catch up with the animals and tiny gnats or moths begin to dot the sky in place of sun beams.

I wanted to give an impression of exuberance and of life bursting out on all sides, celebrating the life-giving properties of the sun.

The painting is on an oak panel prepared with gesso. It has been water gilded and then painted in egg tempera, made by grinding raw pigments in egg yolk and water. It is signed and dated on the reverse and has a d-ring attached, so that it is ready to hang.

Materials used:

Pigments in egg tempera on gessoed oak panel

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