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Friday, January 31, 2014

Monkey Stole My Peanuts

When I lived in Japan I went to Bali, Indonesia for Christmas with several teacher friends.  On one of our excursions we went to a monkey forest.  One purchased peanuts to feed the monkeys that were wild and came right up to you.  Within seconds of purchasing peanuts a monkey jumped up, grabbed my t-shirt, and to my surprise made off with the whole bag of peanuts.  That ended the feeding of the monkeys!

I took some liberties with barns in this spread, a deserted temple represents a "monkey house."  In my imagination I am sure such places exist.  In fact, I think I remember such a place in a film Passage to India or perhaps Jewel in the Crown.

This piece turned out rather dark.  It was much lighter but I did not like the writing that I had added and decided to cover it up with paint.  The poor monkeys are thus pushed back further into the background than I had intended. I thought about covering up the whole spread and starting over, but it presents better in person than this uploaded version.

Monkey Stole My Peanuts

4 comments:

Cate Rose said...

Dark or not, I like it a lot. When were you in Bali? I was there in 1984 for a couple of months.

jacki long said...

Love it, John! You have a real gift for conveying the mood of your works, plus your wonderful use of color. Great title! ;o)
I have been to Bali and the Monkey Forrest, so it brought back memories for me too!

tgarrett said...

Very nice spread John! I like the dark- (as if that's a surprise) it makes one look close. The bright green leaves with the red are so wonderful!

Michele R. Unger said...

Very moody---I love it! Monkeys certainly can be trouble. I had one snatch the glasses right off my face and proceed to twist and bend my frames into oblivion. NOT a good thing in 1980s Nepal.