This image started as a watercolour and pencil sketch in my sketchbook. I then photographed it and worked on it digitally in the Brushes Redux app on my IPad.
I'm planning a painting on canvas of Amitabha holding a lotus to complete my threefold set of Avalokitesvara, Padmasambhava and Amitabha. This process, making sketches, is a way of finding out what is most essential to express about the figure at this moment.
The way the figure sits within the lotus works for me. Over the years I have tried so many ways of painting the lotuses on which the figures are seated. In this image there is something about Amitabha within the heart of the lotus that feels like a significant discovery. There is always something to discover in these explorations of this archetypal world of form and colour.
