I made up my mind that I would get back to trying to paint abstractly again when I returned from teaching at NQA, since weeks ago I had 'invested' in four stretched primed canvases (half price at Joann's). I had put them away under the stairs and that made me feel that I would never actually use them, but eek, after seeing the painting today, I took my fears by the hand and made the start...right after breakfast and a shower and another look at my email.
IN the shower I figured out a plan. I would use a chair as my theme and instead of drawing from life, I would draw it as a quick contour/scribble on paper and rip it out, thus insuring it would not be a perfect shape. I used to be a very tight painter/drawer, and therein lies the rub. I am bored silly by representational painting. Even tho I really like Duane Keiser's A Painting a Day, I just don't want to paint like that. So here's the way I did today's painting.
The drawing, about 27x32"
The ripped out image.
The extremely pristine and scary blank white canvas.
24x36"
I loaded up a Home Depot $3 brush with water and wet down the whole thing.
Then I watered down some acrylics in red, yellow, blue and burnt umber and spread it out all over the perfect whiteness.
The chair shape being used as a mask. I used a huge round bristle brush and just painted any old color around the edges of the torn paper.
Detail of the overlapping paint.
I was holding down the cutout and apparently the base paint wasn't quite dried yet. My hand print was plainly visible when I removed the chair mask..
So slathered on the color and had a wonderful time, not worrying about it being too realistic.
Gooey paint, which some of the underpainting shows through.
Less than a hour later I made myself quit before I gooped it up too much. It dried almost immediately as it is very very hot today.
Great colours! Great picture! I'd like to be able to dye something like this! Val
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I love the way you show us the process stage by stage. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI just love it. Great job. I really love the graphic image of the shape of the chair. And I especially like how it appears to be rising out of it's delicious spunky foundation.
ReplyDeleteTrés bien! Love the colours! Love the technique.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I just recently stumbled on Duane's blog myself and was delighted to find that he's right here in Richmond.
Faboooo against that red wall!!
ReplyDeleteThat looks like so much fun. couldn't you do that on fabric?
ReplyDeleteOOOO. I enjoyed the process as much as the finished painting!
ReplyDeleteIt's gorgeous...and I, too, love seeing your process. The tearing the shape thing is very cool!
ReplyDeleteI am delighted that you were inspired! (and I like the result very much!) Jen
ReplyDeleteway to go...you just keep doing great stuff!
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