A meditative work for Christmas.
I stirred (hand-knead) the soil in the picture during the Christmas nights for 1 hour per night. Afterwards I used it for the painting together with egg tempera. Thus, the applied soil at the 24th December was stirred for 1 hour, while the soil I used at Epiphany went through 13 hours of kneading. The soil I used was Demeter agriculture garden soil, carved-out shortly before Christmas. It spent the holy nights at a chilled place, protected against drying. The remaining, not applied soil was re-dispersed in the garden at the Mare de Déu (Catholic festival of Candlemas) at 2nd February.
It was interesting to observe how the soil`s consistence (pastose – creamy, transparent – powdery) and chromaticity changed during the course of this work. To my surprise, the changes weren’t linear but erratic.