Dimensions:
Budget: 17" x 13"
Standard: 22" x 17"
Canvas: 22" x 17"
The impressionistic "Garden of Dreams" by Jessica Fine was originally done in oil paint and pastels. A beautiful, tree-lined, grassy path, dappled with sunlight leads away from the viewer. Flowers border the way to the left and right . The ketubah text is in a vertical column on the right side of the artwork. Our artist had this to say: This place is called Montifiori, or mountain of flowers. Here I visualized two people in love, walking hand in hand through the grass to their new home: their new life together. The green symbolizes the growth of love. Flowers abound. A yellow ground of oil paint brings sunlight through the lush greens and florals. A series of brights and lights of pastel overlays completed the image. The hand moved on its own path, without conscious thought, painting intuitively, until the finish. (A painter's dream.)
Jessica Fine is an award-winning and much-published pastel
artist -- her work can be seen in the December 2000 issue of The Artist's Magazine
and more recently in the August 2003 issue of American Artist -- with representation
in private and corporate collections throughout the world.
The impressionist style of her work has grown from much experimentation
with methods and materials. Through the use of underpaintings in oil, watercolor,
acrylic and airbrush colors, there is a richness that develops as the colors of
the final lamination of pastels are applied. Interpreting memories of a scene
or subject -- and interweaving her emotional, intellectual and religious ties
to Judaism and Israel -- is the basis of her methodology. Adding a love of poetry
and the richness of color, one sees the sensual visual language of her art.
"Many of my ketubah [designs] didn't start out to be ketubah,"
says Jessica. They became ketubot because they all have one thing in common, according
to the artist. "The fact they are appropriate, and there's a connection in terms
of a couple moving forward together."
Jessica continues, "There's a beauty in commitment, and [I]
try to say that with beautiful work."
