CURIOSITY a new addition to the six categories!
The impetus to try new things, to discover, explore, invent! I think that this drive is not connected to any of the main "emotions" this chapbook is trying to fit everything into. The image(s) above are from a set of four small experimental oil paintings on prepared boards, using texture as an integral part of the support on which I am painting. "WHAT IF" is the phrase that kicks off things like this, and in this case I find myself uncovering something like stained glass, or enamel work, or mosaic tesserae.
The little works are 5 x 7's and they look nice in simple, smart black frames that sit comfortably on a shelf, or grouped on a wall. The eye can play in each of these....I find charred remains of mountain wildfires, little country towns in the hills, a bazaar and a city! Turned sideways the scenes beget creatures, and light shows. These are everything one would find good in a place where eyes wander frequently between tasks. (Not happiness, necessarily, nor sadness, nor anger, nor fear, nor surprise, really, and certainly not disgust, unless y ou see the black raised portions as dirt or mold!)
The little works are 5 x 7's and they look nice in simple, smart black frames that sit comfortably on a shelf, or grouped on a wall. The eye can play in each of these....I find charred remains of mountain wildfires, little country towns in the hills, a bazaar and a city! Turned sideways the scenes beget creatures, and light shows. These are everything one would find good in a place where eyes wander frequently between tasks. (Not happiness, necessarily, nor sadness, nor anger, nor fear, nor surprise, really, and certainly not disgust, unless y ou see the black raised portions as dirt or mold!)
PROCESS finding the language!
Like planning a party, in a way, when there is an end result in mind, but the details need to be lined up and figured out...that is what it's like to work one's way through an artistic vision. The project above is one off trail expedition embarked on during a larger project around the California Wildfires that come every year over those coastal hillsides. The subject comes closer to my own story now that I have relatives living in a home they bought on a tract that was burnt out ten years ago by the hugest wildfire ever in the hills east of San Diego. Reconnoitering in person around that neighborhood I saw with my own eyes stone chimneys with melted metal hanging on but everything gone; trees with no middles...just a charred pit around which new growth was finally springing up in a sort of gnarly circle; flagstones in the patio completely tesserated to bits by the heat. Ten years partly heal a fire, but not enough to veil over the scars. I imagined smelling a real odor of charred wood as I walked along there, in the Julian CA area.
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Bricks reduced to tesserae by heat
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One way I process strong impressions is to paint about it. I have a large, rangy canvas-- not yet resolved, but full of fury and color...the drama of the wind and flames and smoke and smolder..the beauty and horror of it all. It is resting (that's what I call benign neglect) while I process it. Meanwhile, as usual, I make photos of all and parts of my paintings in process.
BUILDING PAINTINGS FROM PHOTOGRAPHED OUT-TAKES OF A LARGER PAINTING
I chose a quartet of small canvases and prepped them as I prep all canvases and boards. I always put on my own gesso over whatever I am painting on.
In this case I plastered on a textured layer of gesso ground using a palatte knife. In this case I chose a detail shot for each canvas, and used the general elements of each as I plastered on the gesso. So I had a textural sketch, loosely speaking, for each of my little canvases. Dried overnight they were ready for some basic blocking in of color. I did NOT stay in the "lines" particularly...just put my marks on and proceeded with a semi abstract approach.
They were nice, I though, but not unified or settled. After a few weeks, I was looking AGAIN at them and thought how the sections formed by the textured strokes might be seen as tesserae. Moving back into the paintings with bolder color I put separate strokes of paint in each section. It was beginning to look like a stained glass window! Hmm. A week later I decided to let the high relief ridges of the texture be my "grout, or leaded joints for my stained
glass look. I stroked dark tones over the ridges and the effect was decorative, and became "friendly" and charming. I could turn these little things upside down and sideways and they were pleasant that way too. What you see on the header is where I was a couple of weeks ago.
In this case I plastered on a textured layer of gesso ground using a palatte knife. In this case I chose a detail shot for each canvas, and used the general elements of each as I plastered on the gesso. So I had a textural sketch, loosely speaking, for each of my little canvases. Dried overnight they were ready for some basic blocking in of color. I did NOT stay in the "lines" particularly...just put my marks on and proceeded with a semi abstract approach.
They were nice, I though, but not unified or settled. After a few weeks, I was looking AGAIN at them and thought how the sections formed by the textured strokes might be seen as tesserae. Moving back into the paintings with bolder color I put separate strokes of paint in each section. It was beginning to look like a stained glass window! Hmm. A week later I decided to let the high relief ridges of the texture be my "grout, or leaded joints for my stained
glass look. I stroked dark tones over the ridges and the effect was decorative, and became "friendly" and charming. I could turn these little things upside down and sideways and they were pleasant that way too. What you see on the header is where I was a couple of weeks ago.
THEN, OF COURSE...THE SPINOFFERY FUN!
My computer is my electronic Muse. How does it look? What would happen if I did this....or this, I ask my image editing program? It is the digital work that transports me to another dimension, a sort of fantasia!
I sometimes purposefully mis-say dimension and say dementia instead. Some inner critic is suggesting I'm daft.)
Jaunty digital renditions are the supply end of my Spinoffery note card line. I sell these cards for $3 a card, or $20 for ten.
Contact me if you want to order.
I sometimes purposefully mis-say dimension and say dementia instead. Some inner critic is suggesting I'm daft.)
Jaunty digital renditions are the supply end of my Spinoffery note card line. I sell these cards for $3 a card, or $20 for ten.
Contact me if you want to order.
