Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art and Writing

Painting by music: Keith Green.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Listening to music is a must when I'm painting, and the music often comes out in whatever I am working. For this reason, I have to be careful in what I choose to listen to depending on the project. However, every once in a while it is the music that inspires me to do the work.

The painting in this post (the final and complete painting can be viewed by using the link at the bottom) was inspired by Keith Green's "My Eyes are Dry" song. It is a short but moving song:

My Eyes are Dry
by Keith Green

My eyes are dry,
My faith is old,
My heart is hard,
My prayers are cold.

And I know how
I ought to be.
Alive to you
And dead to me.

Oh what can be done
For an old heart like mine;
To soften it up
With oil and wine.
The oil is you,
Your spirit of love;
Please wash me anew
In the wine of your love.

I don't want to over discuss the painting, but it developed according to this song; there's symbolism in color and placement. If you'd like to discuss what you see, do so in the comments section below.

For those of you who don't particularly care about this kind of abstract connection between a song and a painting, being more interested in step-by-step, I will not disappoint. Though I'm not going to go into detail of how I created the painting, you can see the progressing images in the links below.

Materials used: BFK Rives paper, pastels, unbleached gesso, matte acrylic medium, gloss acrylic medium, charcoal, watercolor, ink (two kinds of brown and a black), collage with thin paper.

Supplies | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Final