GYPSY CARAVAN

GYPSY CARAVAN

Gypsy Moon

Sold. Thank you Jennifer!

You may remember from a previous post, that I am captivated by gypsies. I am not sure where or when I first became fascinated with them but the music created by Emuziki and other artists wielding violins motivate me to want to dance, paint and sculpt gypsies.

I didn’t expect to meet up with a prince last month on my whirlwind almost month long trip to the UK and Ireland, nor did I ever imagine that I would encounter gypsies on the outskirts of an English town. What a bonus for me!

In the picture below, you can only see one caravan because I could only take a quick photo. There were actually several more caravans in a circle.

Gypsy Caravan

The caravans looked like the Connestoga Wagons of the old wild west, only maybe a bit smaller. The tops were covered with what looked like green canvas. The group was sitting around a campfire looking pretty peaceful. I was told by my tour guide, Megan, that the gypsies were allowed to camp on the outskirts of any town in England. There were no laws prohibiting them. She said that last year residents of one town were pretty upset. The King of one particular group of gypsies had died. Whenever a king dies, the body is cremated in his wagon. It was quite an ordeal.

I did a web and UTube search on gypsies and found that they do not like to be referred to as gypsies at all. The preferred name is Romas or Romani. Even though most of us think of them coming from Romania, many sources say that they originated in Punjab, India.

I posted several gypsy women paintings a few months ago to go along with my Gypsy in my Soul post. After actually seeing them in person, I was inspired to create a few more paintings.

Side view of Gypsy Moon

“Gypsy Moon” was not an easy collage for me to complete. I sketched and painted one of my women on hardwood and then used a technique I invented. I don’t have a name for it yet. I should probably call it, “Make sure you do things the hard way, technique” I wanted the skirt to look like it was cloth and wood that was pieced together. I thought of using a pyrography tool to burn around each piece of cloth like I read in a book called Collage Fusion, by Alma de la Melena Cox. I couldn’t find my pyrography tool so I drew a design on the wood, then cut each individual piece of cloth to fit I surrounded the mosaic with a dark marker. I might have attained the same effect by cutting one whole segment of the cloth and marking around each piece instead of cutting and fitting each individual piece. I would really have saved a lot of time. Oh well.

Close-up of garment

I had completed “Tess” several months ago and she seems to fit into my new image of a modern day gypsy, especially with her tattoos.

Tess

Both Tess and Gypsy Moon are for sale on Etsy in case you’d like more information about them.

Also, while I was doing my research, I found this video of pictures of many different kinds of caravans. I was thinking of what fun it would be to create a caravan and then I remembered..I’ve already got one. My shining B-dazle car!

My art car, B-Dazle 23,000 beads and bangles attached (by me!)