Leo-pond life By Thomas Wolski

This is another re-worked print of mine with a theme that developed much later into the colouring process. Originally I was just painting the background of the new Leopard print foreground in a delicious green. Halfway through doing this I thought that the leopard spots reminded my a little bit of lily pads. Its spring time approaching after all so why not just go with my instinct and have some fun; playing with a serious deep base image and stomping all over its face with some vibrant block colours.

As the lily pad was my inspiration I’d be stupid not to take it to the extreme and turn my picture into a pond. I’m sure that is what you would do as it’s just more fun. I drew upon an idea I had used in the past for one of my earlier works ‘Ribbit for extra Pleasure’. I don’t have a Froggy fetish or anything like that I just love green as its better on my work than on my face #Envy.

I used to have a popup book as a child with retro imagery very similar to the Paul McCartney video ‘We all stand together’ with the Frog Chorus which I loved. We also had a lovely pond nestled away at the back of our garden at home. Every spring there would be flowers, spawn and random insects springing around, at one time even a collection of large gold-fish which I remember feeding with that whiffy fish food that looked like Rice Krispies. Oh a tear comes to the eye when I think about the remains of a fishy carcass dropped by a heron on to the patio. I of course styled a crucifix from the left over Smarties Easter egg box and gave the poor fish a proper send off…. safe to say it is no longer there! We had a cat.

Presently getting up at 6:00am on the cold dark mornings of this everlasting Winter to work on this piece has brought me a huge amount of joy and nostalgia. It is lively, big, bold, colourful and full of fun which I guess is a large reflection of its creator…..! There is a lot going on however you can involve yourself as little or as much as you like. Enjoy the intense detailed line drawing in the distance or simply love the jazzy block coloured cartoony madness.

I hope that my zany view on this piece gives a little justification, if not I am sure that you are at least gagging to dig up a hole in the back garden and fill it with water just so that you have the opportunity to experience something wonderful as did I.