Gerhard Richter – Seascapes and Squeegees.
Richter is someone I have only recently started to look at. I am looking at his work for two reasons, his abstract technique of applying paint using a squeegee and for his seascape paintings.
Using a squeegee to apply paint is something I have been thinking about for a few days. I have been experimenting with using a squeegee and acrylic paint to see how it would look and to try different ways of using it to apply paint (applying different pressures, different angles and different amounts of paint and colours). I wanted to experiment first before applying it straight onto the canvas (I will show the results of these experiments in a separate post).
By using a squeegee I want to try and create some depth and texture within my paintings. A technique Richter uses is to smear the wet paint and keep adding layers of new paint, and then he will work into the layers to reveal the hidden layers underneath. This is something I am definitely going to try with my own work.
In relation to his abstract paintings Richter once said,
“When I paint an abstract, I do not know what it is going to look like beforehand, nor do I know where I want to go when I’m painting.”
This is similar to how I think when I start to create a painting; I have no set outcome in my mind.
I first looked at Richter for the squeegee technique and then discovered his seascape series of paintings. After researching Richter’s seascapes I found he has made a series of photographs entitled Atlas. These are a collection of photographs, newspapers cut outs and sketches. In this collection are some seascape collages, where Richter has used the sea part of two photographs and put them together to create the sky and sea in one collaged Image. He would also use the sky and sea from separate images and put them together in one image, these collages were sometimes used as a starting point for his paintings.
I found this interesting as although I don’t create collages like Richter using different images, if I see something in a photo and think it would work in my paintings I will use it and take inspiration from different images for one painting.
On the right I have put some examples of Richter’s seascape paintings, his seascape collages and two abstract paintings that demonstrate how he used a squeegee to apply and layer the paint.
http://www.gerhardrichterpainting.com/#/the-artist…
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/search/detail.p…
