Tiny Dancer

Two insignificant things met at a junction to produce this painting: (1) in error I bought some canvases that are too small for my broad clumsy brushstrokes. I had them lying around in my bedroom, kept picking them up and putting them back down again. (2) I was holding one and wondering how to block out that frightening white when Elton John’s catchy but uncommercial “Tiny Dancer” song came on (chosen by someone on Desert Islands Discs.) Immediately I started sketching out a tiny ballet dancer.

So here it is, done in two thirty-minute sessions using a mesh of about five pastel shades. I set the ballerina in a studio practising before big windows.

I’ve watched many a ballet on Christmas day, family in the back living room and me in the front room (playing with my new stuff.) They seem to show The Nutcracker or Coppelia on BBC2 as an antidote to the commercial slop on the other channels. Sometimes I go onto Youtube and watch pirouettes performed without dizziness. One does 32 in a row.