I thought I’d blog about my latest obsession: the peacock. While I’ve had periods of infatuation with various artists, writers, animals, men, drinks, sports and foods, this is my first time with the peacock. It began innocently enough, when my friend KRS began making these wonderfully strange sculptures of peacocks. Interested in female identity, and themes of vanity and beauty, her birds were often tied up in leather straps or wearing blindfolds. They were really mawish.
The next peacock sighting was a report by my cousin Julien from a music residency in Italy. He was holed up in a villa, a beautiful place with formal gardens, recording with a range of international and local musos. I was keen to visit, but with a young child, the timing just wasn’t appropriate. But I’ll always remember him writing me an email about the white peacock in the villa gardens.
For me, this white peacock, has assumed the proportions of the mythic white whale. It was the classic case of the hoilday abroad coming at the wrong stage in one’s life. 
Anyway, I had Year of the Bird coming up, an exhibition curated by Caelli Jo Brooker and myself for Maitland Regional Art Gallery, and I was struggling to think of something to make for the show. Then it dawned on me: it was time to re-ignite peacock-philia! Caelli and her family delivered an old oak paneled wardrobe and I set about painting it in the carport.
Ironically, birds have taken to crapping on the wardrobe, but I’ve decided that this is their way of expressing admiration. I’ve had a great time getting OTT with peacocks. On the wardrobe, which has some nice Art Nouveau panels (the shapes seem to suggest what subject matter they’d like to have on them) I’ve painted all things peacock.
There are peacock wings, peacock feathers, peacocks sitting on castles, Art Noveau/vaguely Japanese inspired peacocks, peacocks displaying, courting peacocks, (curried shrimp…), and various designs that are supposed to remind you of… the peacock. It’s never going to win any good taste awards, I’m quite certain of that. 
As the damned thing needs to be delivered to the gallery on Monday, I really need to finish it by Saturday to give it time to dry. The next step is to paint the decorative side panels, then I’m going to pick out some more highlights with white paint, toned down with a bit of burnt umber. 
From a purely parsimonious perspective, I’ve got to admit to loving the underpainting in burnt umber technique, because the pigment is the cheapest of the range. Also, the thin paint applications mean that so far I’m only about three quarters of the way through a small tube, which is pretty good as I tend to be a bit of a paint hog. 
Ah, the romance of the open studio! Plein air painting at its most budget.
The next step will be to apply some thin washes of colour, hopefully once the flecks of white highlighting have dried, otherwise it’s going to be a horrible mess. Finally, the wardrobe will get a coat of sealer (if I have time) and some brown furniture polish. The theory is that the polish will tone down some of the colours, and make the green trim, which is a rather yucky spearmint chewing gum colour, look a bit more nuanced.
Thanks to Holley Ryan, who very kindly painted our faces with peacock designs, during a recent visit to EVM.
Helen Hopcroft: an artist's life 