Tuesday, February 24, 2009

"Square Eve"

is the title of this, my latest painting.

Obviously this isn't the best photo, but I'm not quite done with it yet and rather than wait till after it's finished with a nice coat of matte varnish, I thought I'd show it off now. This painting is constantly changing, depending on the angle and the light. So amazing how the colors shift and juxtapose. My biggest entertainment is seeing the copper (dot) patterns over the large heart shape that fills the canvas and how those interact with the other colors and shapes.

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The procedure for making this is to lay down a sheet of newsprint on canvas using gesso. Second step is to make a painting, using Conti Pencils and acrylic paint. To the right is this "under painting". And then comes the main event, which is the "controlled experiment" of the placement of the colored dots. It's an arbitrary process that varies with each painting. At times I'm working to disguise and at other times, to enhance, what will soon be obliterated by many dots of paint. What's kind of cool is the joke that no one will ever see; the two men talking at the bottom. The man on the right is Adam and on the left is his neighbor. They're fixing to go hunting. The neighbor has heard about Eve eating the apple and asks Adam, "Did you eat it ?". To this Adam replies, "No, I let her hang by herself ". Of course this all becomes nonexistent when the painting's finished; it's just something to do to provide color and lines to hang the dots on. I've a few more dots to add on the side and then it will be finished.

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1 comment:

Fred said...

Ah, I see you're well familiar with the inadequacy of photography to capture the subtle but significant elements of metallics and textures of our work. Of course, to the right patrons, it's a real "selling" point! I may someday experiment with using video to enhance my presentation.