FINAL PAINTING: The Evolution of

I started the final painting (18" x 24") with the intention of exaggerating the abstract land-scape quality that the 4th study ended up having. I think that the final painting reads pretty well, in my pallet knife marks I tried to follow the contours of the plastic, paper, and fabric, but also accent the parts of the model that resembled a landscape.

I realized that in the cropping the composition of my model, I lost most of the translucent and transparent elements -- one of the challenges in this assignment was to have your model include something transparent, something translucent, and something opaque. So, since these vital elements were cropped out in the final composition, I found a way to include them as an illusion on the surface of the painting. I utilized the strips of cheesecloth that were attached to the canvas and painted them to look as if they were on top of the painting, making some look see-through and some look tinted and translucent. I did this through painting the model differently in each strip of cheese cloth, where some have the true color and others have off color.

Here's the progression of the painting, starting with the blue and burnt sienna under painting:

FINAL PAINTING: The Very Beginning

Before laying down any paint at all, I built up a simple textural layer with cheese-cloth, a technique I learned from the work of Verna Brady. Verna is my boyfriend's grandmother, but she was also an incredible post-50's abstract expressionist. She experimented mostly with 3-dimentional texture in painting, and also expressive visual ideas in abstract forms, such as relative size and shape relationships.

Here's Verna Brady:

And here's an example of her work:

And here's her working in her studio in the 70's:

Anyway, she's been a huge inspiration in my outlook on art in the last few years, but I haven't really figured out how to use the things I learned from her work until recently. It's hard to let go of strict representation and realism, I've found that it takes years and years or realistic representational work before you can break away from it-- or not before you can  break away, but until you can feel comfortable with breaking away. It's so hard to let go, partially because it feels easier to stick to things you already know, but also because it's difficult to be objective about something as subjective as abstract art.

STUDY 4: Playing with Texture and Illusion

For this study, I paid more attention to the arrangement of colors, the composition, and the texture on the surface, rather than only realistically representing the objects in front of me. I sort of let the direction of the materials in front of me (plastic, paper, wood, and clay) inspire and guide me for the directions in my application of the paint. I first painted the image straight-forward using brushes, and then used a pallet knife to bring out highlights and shadows, and add texture consistently throughout the study.

I feel like this is it, this is the one I'm going to base my final painting on. Parts of this study felt like painting a landscape, and it sort of turned out to look like an abstract landscape, based on the shapes and color scheme. The paper I painted in the foreground ended up looking like an ocean, just by default of the texture created with the pallet knife.

Ocean and Shore

My boyfriend said to me that it looks like a landscape of ocean, a desert, and white snowy mountains with a pair of giant hands laying crossed in the center, and that it was both conceptually and stylistically unlike anything I'd tried before.

Snow-capped Mountains

Hearing it from someone else proved it to me that this composition is not totally literal. I've finally found a way to break down the composition of what was at first more like a still life, and make something that is more open to interpretation. My goal is to end up with something that is both abstract and representational, depending on the interpretation of the audience. We'll see what happens!

STUDY 3: Study Playing with Texture and Depth

For this study, I wanted to play with depth perception in terms of abstract motifs, and experiment with having the background interrupt the foreground. First I painted 2 layers on the background, then the wooden model in the foreground, and then the texture of the background -- bringing it forward so that it overlaps with the objects. I think if I were to do this in the final painting, I would need to commit to taking chances and experiment more with abstract marks in the foreground so that my marks and themes are consistent throughout the piece. 

STUDY 2: Painted Study of a Broken Composition

My first attempt at painting the model: I painted the left side first, looking at the wooden model; then taping the edge of the left painting, painted the clay hands with translucent plastic on the right. I used acrylic so the paint would dry fast enough for me to put tape on the one side to get that straight edge between the two images. 

Now I'm wondering if that clean edge is too abrupt. it does look more like two paintings put next to each other, and doesn't necessarily read as having that much of a relationship with each other. Perhaps if there was some cross over between the two images, like loose pallet knife paint marks from one image interrupting the other. Or maybe if I painted a whole composition involving the wooden head and shoulders model, and then painted the clay hands over one third of the painting -- maybe taping parts of the original layer before painting the hands and then removing the tape to reveal glimpses of that original layer.

STUDY 1: Composition Study with Pen and Prismacolors

I did a quick study on paper with pen and Prismacolor markers, to play with the layout of the model. Looking at it now, while I think it accurately portrays the components and arrangement of my model, it still looks more like a still life.  So I'm trying to think of ways to break up the composition and make it more either abstract or more conceptual. I was thinking, what if I were to paint part of the model on one half of the canvas, then another close-up part on the other half, laying a strip of tape down in the middle each time I paint one side to create a clean edge where they connect....

I was thinking that a broken composition like this might be more interesting. I think this gives the impression of someone's hands resting on the back of a man who is sleeping, and the cloth and translucent plastic suggest bed sheets. I feel this composition and the soft daylight create a calm and restful subject, yet disturbed by the sharp clean line between the two images, implying distance or separation. It is a question between restfulness and sorrow.

Ideas, Intentions

My intention is to take these figurative objects I've created for my model and paint them in a way that they could be conceived as abstract live figures or sculptural objects.