Planets and Foil

I had originally planned to paint marbles on a mirror for this painting, but obviously that was an exercise in futility as the marbles wouldn't stop rolling around. I thought the foil was a nice compromise: it was still mirror-like, but I was able to make little nests for each marble. The reflections were a lot more interesting than those on a flat mirror, and, of course, tougher to paint. This painting is as large as I can go at 21"x29", and the individual marbles were so big my husband Jeff and I started to think of them as planets. (There are indeed nine of them if you still count Pluto, and how can you not?) So instead of calling this "Marbles and Foil," Jeff suggested I title it "Planets and Foil."

Painting at the speed of one marble per day, I gloried in the weirdness of the marbles'/planets' swirls and sparkly bits. Jeff's daughter let me use some of her marbles for this, including the one I started to think of as Jupiter, the large orange and purple one on the left side. This had an unusually reflective surface and took two and a half days to finish. The foil under it was really complex as well. Painting this was an absolute joy.