Experimenting with Space (2)
Once I had the constructed my 3D surface it was time to start painting. I approached this painting the same way as I did with my others- by having no preconceptions of what I wanted to happen in terms of the paint and how I applied it. I wanted to instinctively react to the surface.
I use this approach for the preliminary coat of paint, after that I am consciously aware of the colours I am choosing, how and where they are applied and the techniques I am using to apply them.
I think by working this way I have the best chance of achieving what I want. I say ‘best chance’ because ultimately that’s what it is. I have no idea how the shapes, colours, patterns and textures I’ve chosen will react together. There are some formulas that I am aware of and use (mainly colour wheel positions and colour combinations) but ultimately the overall ‘effect’ of the composition I have little control over.
But I digress… so I painted the first layer as “instinctively” as I could with the idea that I can sculpt the “space” into the work with my second layer. The white primer re-touch marks on the first layer are where the filler I used in the gaps between the boards, reacted with the paint- so I scraped it out sanded it back and re-primed.
With my second layer I wanted to create a strong contrast between my colours. In some of my previous works I’ve noticed that I get too fixated upon the micro aspects of the painting and fail to look at the painting from a macro perspective. I wanted the centre part of the canvas to be considerably lighter than the surrounding edges as I hoped the colours might evoke a sense of tunnel-like perspective. I thought this would work particularly well due to the inclination of the boards being centred towards it.
As a whole I though this layer worked ok. I was happy the centre panels and the overall dark surrounding tones. I was particularly happy with the way the yellow ‘popped’- and was not overshadowed by any of the other colours.
I then masked this layer with masking tape to attempt to create some space within the work (I’ll go into detail about masking in my next post).
This is where I am not too happy with the outcome. As I said before I sometimes get too preoccupied with the individual parts of a painting and don’t take into account how the painting will turn out as a whole- and that’s exactly what has happened here. The painting is a cluttered mess of colour that that does not harmonise well. Objectively the tones of the colours are very similar, as are the colours themselves. There is too much going on to focus on one bit and the viewer is therefore left with a very messy disordered
However it wasn’t a total loss, the experiment did serve the purpose of seeing how the colours would react on different planes. I’m sure that if I had used the paint in a different way I would have achieved some very interesting effect. Nonetheless this experiment has giving me a few ideas and check points from which to work.
Keep the big picture in mind- both with colour and layout.
Don’t over complicate the painting with
Changing the surface does change the effect.
