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Picnic in Paradise

Was it this William Turner's painting Sun Setting over a Lake, seen at Tate London long ago, that still lingered somewhere in the back of my head? The warm air and a distant echo from a quiet day spend in the open. That soft golden glow, exactly the kind of atmosphere I like for the scene.



Please let me recap for a moment, I picked up that root-bundle on one of my walks. Could not help to think of the tree of knowledge, the doctrine of the fall in biblical sense. Also the image of Yggdrasil from the 13th century Edda sprung to mind, the world tree. Just needed to mount this bundle upside down on a trunk, place it in a vitrine and I had my scene anchored. That was one.




Later I worked on the backdrop with a creamy mix of acrylic and oil paint and finished it of with some spay paint on carton board. The brush strokes on the left should be invisible when the board is fitted at the back of the vitrine, not quite a Turner but still the idea of a warm sunset.


Finally I spend some lovely hours figuring out how to animate the tall grasses or reeds in the background. I thought of the deserted picnic scene under the tree, and my guess is that the whole piece looks more desolate when there is just this slow swaying vegetation and nothing else. Maybe the people where suddenly interrupted and chased off by something, who knows what happened to them. Look the freshly baked bread and the melon, apple pie, cheese and all these delicacies spread on the ground, and the milk spilled over when the people left in a hurry.


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