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Over at her blog site Zoe in Wonderland, Zoe Blue has been posting about the healing powers of music, illustrated with images of her maquette of Santa Caterina playing the fiddle as she dances ecstatically. Zoe was the very first visitor to the Artlog to write to me about the techniques of making maquettes, and although she was already confidently on her pathway to being a painter, I could see that the practice of making maquettes might serve her very well in compositional terms. She started hesitantly and I wondered whether she’d stick with the technique, but suddenly she was off like a racehorse, not only mastering the art of the maquette, but additionally using the paper figures to extraordinary effect as models for her paintings.
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Zoe absolutely ‘got’ the notion of the posable maquette as a tool to explore positive and negative shape, and almost overnight her paintings acquired an exhilarating compositional boldness. Moreover although the construction of her figures pretty much mirrors my own practice, Zoe has evolved ways of using them that are uniquely her own, with results that are most impressive in pictorial terms.
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So today I post images of Santa Caterina giving herself up to the power of the music and the dance. She positively crackles with life. Well done Zoe! (I have to say that Caterina is really working that hair and those heels! I’m betting she dances a smoking hot tango!)
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Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
Zoe, these are spectacular, Clive is right on, you have really mastered this technique, it really suits you. She is quite the whirling dervish, a mad Saint Cecilia, I love her. Cannot wait to see how she progresses, paintings of course seem natural, but in the Clivean spirit, stop-animation comes to mind. It is no wonder that you and Clive with such keen interests in dance and movement would have developed a kinship. Great work, LG
oh, i would love to do a stop-animation…i tried a few times with the tango dancers, it’s really difficult, and i sorely need a block of time to work out the process. but it’s a hope, for sure!
i’m so glad that her personality comes across just that way 😀
Wonderful! Bravo Zoe, and Clive for turning her on to maquetting.
clive, your comments are so sweet, and i am thrilled that you are excited by her. learning this technique from you has really changed the way i look at painting, and they allow for much more play 🙂
thank you philippa and phil, for your generous comments also!
Wow, Santa Caterina is a great maquette, she’s so full of power, she looks totally consumed with the music, very skilfully done Zoe
I love the flash of her back, it’s quite eye catching and intriguing! And also how Zoe’s made her lost in the music, dancing for herself.
Agreed. Zoe really loses herself in these little figures, gives herself up to the spirit of them, and it invests the maquettes with sublime energy.