Yesterday at college I was working by scratching into the surface of paper and then ‘excavating’ the marks by brushing very dry paint across the surface. I then did it on canvas with various implements to varying results.
Working at home today, I started by priming a roughly square piece of canvas with cream paint and then working into it (mainly with fingers, or finger with protector) with moss coloured acrylic and grey. Sticking with my tomb-raided colours.
The way I am working now, while being free, I am building up paint in areas and then scraping back, sometimes with a knife but often with a pencil now as I have been defining areas of my work – the pencil both clears a layer of paint and leaves its own mark.
I have a few images from the past week. Painting progress is slowing just now as I have a month until my dissertation is due in! I have chosen a subject close to my interests and so it is nourishing my practice along the way.
The working title is ‘Experience of paintings as Originals and Reproductions’ and the section I am working on now relates to how we view images of paintings now – on the web and in books.
Ok, so I have a few more paintings here of work on paper, two in Burnt Sienna and white – sea fire and atmosphere where I drew into the paint with a pencil.
And the progress of another using black, white and green moss growth, which is looking rather ugly since I added the thick lines of paint around contours. I think those thick lines don’t fit with what had come previously. I had been working with my fingers rather than a brush, which was fine small scale (sea fire is A3) but at A0 I soon got a sore finger! When I changed to using a brush, my whole approach to the painting altered. The other thing I have been uncomfortable with this painting is that for the first time in months I am working on a wall. I am so used to working with the paper/canvas horizontal that I now feel self-conscious. There seem to be more distractions working on a vertical surface, standing up – more is attention grabbing than looking down to the floor.
I don’t yet know whether this is true or an excuse I’m giving myself for the painting going AWOL.
Happy New Year!
The beginning of 2014 and I am itching to get going.
My next pieces are going to involve working on top of old paintings – or – using old paintings that I can’t quite work over yet as a starting point.
I feel I’ve worked through the limited palette of black, white and burnt sienna enough for now.
I’ve dug out an old piece from a year or so ago where I used wax crayon to ‘write’ to give resistance, along with emulsion and acrylic paint. Was going to paint over it, but need to look at it some more! I’ll add a photo of it on here – it has a really faded look to it. It looked much more exciting when wet.
There are some other pieces in oils which are hung on my stairs (just moved house and nowhere else to place them) so they are out of the way. I really need to work over them, one is based on a map and is thickly laid with paint and I reckon that would make for interesting painting.
