Progress of a Magic Painting

I was determined to document the progress of a painting started earlier this week. It turned out to be a magic painting (magic paintings practically paint themselves!) and, while these are extremely fun to paint, they don’t document too well as their direction is undeniably determined at the very beginning, before I realize their magical nature.

I started with a 20" x 20" cradled wood panel which I textured with gesso, tissue paper, gel medium and course pumice gel. I did not photograph it prior to laying down color because the texture wouldn't photograph well and it would likely be lost on all but myself. But this texturing yields a beautiful surface to paint on.

Below is after the first two initial painting sessions, about 20–30 minutes each and an hour apart, completed in a single evening. I laid down sections of translucent acrylic paint, overlapping in some areas and letting the texture on the board do its magical thing. The translucence creates very clean, bright versions of the colors due to the white under-painting/texturing. Covering the surface with color is fairly quick, but I do have to let it dry at least to the touch before adding the black and white areas. [This is where I could have photographed the initial color wash just to show some distinction of progress, but  had no idea at the time that the next 30 minutes would seal the painting’s fate.] I added some black shapes here and there with some pieces of foam that I had cut out into organic shapes, also did some free-form brush strokes in black. Then I went over some areas with white and yellow, thinned with glazing medium which lets some of the black shapes show through. I love the coloration as it stands right now, so bright and cheery! But I know that this painting will evolve [They don’t have to evolve when they work at the get-go.] and maybe only a little of this color will remain as evidence that I did indeed use these bright colors. Or it may be that I’ll continue on with the brights, who knows? [Yup, I continued with the brights!.] 

Progress after evening 1

I worked on the painting again on Wednesday and I was surprised when I compared where I am now with the previous day’s image of it. It doesn’t look all that different even though Wednesday night’s painting session was a longer one, a full hour. I like the bright colors, so I’m trying to hang on to that. But it definitely needed some contrast, so I added the black parts. I stamped some more natural elements on it while scumbling up in some areas and covering some of the previous elements. Overall, it’s coming along nicely. I am pleased with it so far but more importantly, I am enjoying the process.

1. 

   Progress after evening 2

I worked on the painting last night for about an hour and again this morning doing the final touch-ups. I glazed some of the bright colors back in, added some more organic elements, incorporated a bit more white for contrast and even though it looks amazingly like the first image, it is refined and balanced. It is an Arte de Natura for sure! Below is the completed painting:

Arte de Natura II
20" x 20", acrylic on wood

Progressives of New Work

So now that I am once again inspired to make paintings, I thought it would be interesting to post the progress of a project. Shown below is the beginning of a new set of paintings, inspired by a study I did in my new "messy" style. The piece that inspired this is shown below, entitled "Arte de Natura (a study)". It's a small piece, painted on paper. I enjoyed painting it. It happened kind of magically. I love when that happens.

So the pictures below show the start of the new pieces. The idea is that they coordinate with one another, ideally ultimately hanging together. So I paint them simultaneously. This picture was taken after two painting sessions, each about 30 to 40 minutes each.

Then I changed my mind! I was liking the general direction/color scheme and then I hit a block. I couldn't see where to take these. They were too unfinished to be paintings, but I couldn't tell where they needed to go. I started to worry about creative block again, so I knifed over the whole thing and started over. The next post will show the two and how they ultimately turned out. So different! The new ones look more like "Reverie" and "Fall Where They May" than the "Arte de Natura" study. It's funny how these things take unexpected turns!

Progress of "Inclined to Agree"

I didn't have much time this evening, but I wanted to get a bit of glaze on it so that it would set by tomorrow. I scumbled up a bit in the dark areas and glazed the entire lower half back down with Alizarin Crimson mixed with some Cadmium Red Medium to give it more intensity of color. I love how the red-tinted glaze got caught in all the little crevasses. Now it’s looking truer to my vision. Circles are starting to be added into the upper left quadrant. These will probably almost disappear in the end, ultimately they'll likely just be "ghosts" of circles. And the blue area was a little too intense, so I cut that back with a little white mixed with muted turquoise. The change in that area is subtle, but it is looking much better to me. Sometimes the subtlest shift of hue and value is all that it takes to make me more comfortable with a painting’s progress.

A New Painting (in progress)

I just started this commissioned piece for Shelley and thought I’d post some progress images. I started off with a layout based on a couple of older paintings that Shelley liked.


After preparing the board with texture paste and painting it black, I started by blocking in the general colors.


Then I masked the areas that were going to get stripes. I used black fluid acrylic combined with heavy gel and knifed in the thin lines. I used a brush for the wider stripes.


Masks removed, revealing the stripes.


Then I continued glazing to get the colors a little closer. Here’s where it stands right now. More to come…

Struggling still…

I had really hoped that something would have “occurred” to me by now to solve this little painting’s dilemma. Last night I put in some thin horizontal lines in the lower right quadrant, an effect that I like, but it seems I always resort to that when I am in conflict over a painting’s direction. Then I put in some circles. The balance seems off there, I need to glaze that big one down a LOT, even though I did a removal procedure after I painted it in so it’s not even as strong as initially applied. I like the smaller circles in the lower left, but that area muddied up a bit in the removal process (black always does that). And now I am in quandary over the little horizontal strip applied in the lower center portion. I got the idea to put something there from removing some of the masking tape from an earlier session. I re-use my masking tape sometimes, and this piece of tape had masked some other painting while I was using red. I just tacked the tape in the lower area of the painting, just to get it out of the way while I toiled at some other task but when I stepped back and looked at the painting the strip of red seemed just what the painting needed, a little unexpected color. So last night, remembering that little observation, I actually masked off a small area and applied the red. But now I am not so sure. I may have to paint over a bit, we’ll see what happens tonight!

Struggling…

Well, I haven’t been able to completely salvage this one yet. It started out as a “Quadrant” painting and I suppose it still has the look. What is different about this one from the other Quadrants is that I went back to brush painting and my previous two Quadrants were painted primarily with a knife. The knife yields a different look from the brush, in some ways a more interesting result, but then there are things that happen with a brush and very thinly layered glazes that I find myself missing in knife paintings. You can see my inspiration layouts tacked up on the wall, I have obviously completely abandoned those references in any but the most general way.

This work is far from complete, it still needs circles and additional embellishments. Maybe it will be a “Quadrant”, maybe it will become something else completely.