Still shut in with cold weather and feeling ill. We can't seem to shake the freezing temps or the flu bug.
While sick with fever, I watched a few movies. I came across one called "Belle" and the story struck a chord. I went back to a session I had with Kai and approached this image as the character Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay. It worked. Once again, playing with digital painting, I created an oil painted look for the image.
About Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay: (1761–1804) was born into slavery as the natural daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies, and Captain John Lindsay, a British career naval officer who was stationed there. Lindsay took Belle with him when he returned to England in 1765, entrusting her to his uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, and his wife Elizabeth to raise. The Murrays educated Belle, bringing her up as a free gentlewoman, together with their niece, Lady Elizabeth Murray, whose mother had died. Belle lived there for 30 years. In his will of 1793, Lord Mansfield confirmed her freedom and provided an outright sum and an annuity to her.
In the years he raised Dido, her great-uncle, Lord Chief Justice, ruled in two significant slavery cases, finding in 1772 that slavery had no precedent in common law in England, and had never been authorized under positive law. This was taken as the formal end of slavery in Britain. In a case related to the slave trade, he narrowly ruled that owners of a company were not due insurance payments for the loss of slaves during a voyage, as it appeared related to errors by the officers.
While sick with fever, I watched a few movies. I came across one called "Belle" and the story struck a chord. I went back to a session I had with Kai and approached this image as the character Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay. It worked. Once again, playing with digital painting, I created an oil painted look for the image.
About Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay: (1761–1804) was born into slavery as the natural daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies, and Captain John Lindsay, a British career naval officer who was stationed there. Lindsay took Belle with him when he returned to England in 1765, entrusting her to his uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, and his wife Elizabeth to raise. The Murrays educated Belle, bringing her up as a free gentlewoman, together with their niece, Lady Elizabeth Murray, whose mother had died. Belle lived there for 30 years. In his will of 1793, Lord Mansfield confirmed her freedom and provided an outright sum and an annuity to her.
In the years he raised Dido, her great-uncle, Lord Chief Justice, ruled in two significant slavery cases, finding in 1772 that slavery had no precedent in common law in England, and had never been authorized under positive law. This was taken as the formal end of slavery in Britain. In a case related to the slave trade, he narrowly ruled that owners of a company were not due insurance payments for the loss of slaves during a voyage, as it appeared related to errors by the officers.
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