Today’s work grasp.
Working with some of the forms I found interesting from yesterdays painting.
Progress! Painting on a larger scale than my recent work. One of my tutors mentioned John Cage in relation to the work I’m making now.
The scale of this work meant I worked quite differently on the top, middle and bottom section. The detail image is a part which I felt was particularly exciting.
Carrying on – I am aiming to do a painting a day. It was feeling strange to leave this large piece with lots of space as it was at the end of the day at college, but looking back at it today, and starting a new painting (smaller – I don’t want to go any smaller than this, around 1m² as the marks get too crowded too quickly)
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.
