Reverence

I call this 100 X 100 cm canvas "Reverence", which is the posh word for a dancer's bow at the end of a ballet ,but I really wanted to call it "Eminence Grise" because of the man's ostentatious protection of his manly endowment.

I imagined very traditional costumes for the pair. She wears a layered tutu and he a short jacket, sash and jabot over his tights. I think I must have been imagining Swan Lake when I introduced the branches and the pale little moon on the flats behind her.My sketch had focussed on her alone, filling the entire frame but it felt too static to me so I moved her to the right to fill the upper two thirds, leaving the left hand and bottom thirds to establish the stage and curtain.

The composition is based on the interaction of her square placing of her legs to curtsey and the circle which seems to grow up from the tutu. At the centre of the circle which lies at the base of her back an arabesque extends down her body and through her neck to her head, which is tilted to bring it to a conclusion just above a bouquet of roses. One arm is swpt up and back the other reaches to pick up a single rose.

Once I had established the drawing on the canvas with the inevitable recalibration, this was all about the green and orange for me. The composition is based on the square set of the ballerina’s legs as she bows and the circle that extends upwards from her tutu, placed in the righthand side of the canvas and the stage curtain forming a column on the left, in front of which stands the male dancer.

I gave a lot of attention to the ballerina’s face because of the heavy stage make up and the bright theatre lights which I imagined giving her skin a very pale colour - Naples Yellow Lightwith just a touch of pink - where it catches her, with deep shadows on the other side. The male dancer I anonymised by leaving out his head altogether. With apologies to Matthew Bourne and the rest, he would appear to only be there to perform the lifts and other props for the Prima Donna.

I thought I would give her a reason for the bow and so put in some roses in a bouquet to her right as well a single bloom which has escaped and which she is picking up.

Separating the roses with little white lines meant they ended up reminding me of political emblems, but, never mind, I had enjoyed painting them, so they stayed.