Natalie In Blue

Many years ago, I planned to create a couple of colorful paintings with some models. I planned to create each model in a specific dominant color. The view of the models was shown from above as they would lie in a bath of physical color, in the final painting. To simulate the color they would eventually be in, for the photograhic referencees, I bought an inflatable pool of 1000 liters. To this I collected a few hundred kg of clay, which I dragged into my little apartment that I lived in.

Youghurt-ish clay

My idea was that the models should be placed in a ”youghurt-ish clay bath”, to create credible references when creating the painting later on. To get the right consistency on the simulated color, I trampled around the mud, which I gradually mixed with water. That way I reduced clumps of clay. First I trampled barefoot but because of all the stones in the mud, I finally had to take a couple of old boots to tread with. Don’t know if it was that much easier, but finally I had trampled all clumps of mud, including the boots, and cleaned away all the stone.

photoshoot

When it was time for the models to lie down in the clay bath, it was anything but comfortable. Although the clay had been indoors long enough to have heated up, it was icy to lie in. So we tried to warm it up with boiled water. That didn’t help, so these photo shoots were kept very short. Of course, looking relaxed in this situation was not so easy, but the result below with Natalie ended up great anyways, in my opinion :).