Praeterita

The first meditation on art of 2011, and number 51 in the series, is on a painting by Jean Michel Basquiat, prompted by my watching Tamra Davis' documentary on JMB, ' The Radiant Child ', recently.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Here is a 6" x 6" panel that I've also been using to experiment with different kinds of acrylic gels: First I spread a layer of molding paste over the panel and let it dry. Then I painted the round cluster of coal shapes with a needle applicator and fluid acrylic, and let that dry. Next, I spread a transparent layer of iridescent white over the whole thing. Then I smothered it in a thick layer of clear tar gel, which is a very thick acrylic gel with the consistency of melted toffee or caramel. While that was still wet, I drizzled Payne's Grey fluid acrylic into it. The image isn't really anything much at the moment, but the technique is very attractive: The tar gel dries very clear, and it's so thick that the paint I drizzled into it sits high off the previous layers, giving it great translucency and depth: It's another texture to think about as I work on this series over the next few months.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

High jumper. Geddit? Two days away from the studio this week, partly to review my plans for the year. Right at the end of 2009, I bought Alyson Stanfield’s book ‘ I’d Rather Be in the Studio ’, which is based on her business as advisor and coach to artists, and I decided to follow as much of her advice as I could. One of those things was to make a long-term plan consisting of specific goals and specific steps to achieving them. In looking back over 2010, here are some of the things that I managed to do: Created this blog, and stuck to a routine of daily posting (actually, 422 posts for 2010). Completely revised my website. Whenever I visited a city together with Patty to research a travel article, I arranged in advance to meet an artist in that city and interview them for the blog. Update my publicity materials (long bio, short bio, artist’s statement, CV). Attend art openings in Chicago. Send out proposals for exhibitions. Arrange to teach workshops (Interlochen and Shake...

I've been posting the progress on three paintings during the last five days that I've been in the studio. The latest thing I did to one of them was to put some molding paste in different areas of the canvas. This is essentially acrylic medium with ground pumice stone in it. When it dries, it looks like plaster, but when it's wet you can press things into the paste and it will retain the imprint of the material. So I took a piece of printmaking scrim and rolled it with a brayer to press it into the molding paste: I took a close-up picture, in which you can see the imprint of the mesh from the scrim: It takes a day to dry, after which I can stain it, paint on it, add more texture -- anything, really.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

First, thank you to the two new people who signed up to follow this blog via Facebook. Next, I didn't like the way that painting dried, so I poured some thinned white acrylic paint over it: And then poured some silver paint into the white: The acrylic skins dried perfectly, and came away from the plastic sheeting very easily: I laid one of them in the middle of a dried painting to see how it would look: I don't think this particular element works for this picture. But I'm going to save the 'skins' for a painting in which they might work.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Here is that wet into wet painting a few hours into the drying stage: I expect the ochre shapes to retain their edges a little, while the splodgy brown circles will melt into the surrounding pigment a little more.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

This is the first time since September that I've had more than two days at a time in the studio. Yesterday I continued working with acrylics by making some acrylic skins: They are made from heavy acrylic gel with a little pigment added. I painted them onto a piece of plastic sheeting, so that when they dry, I can prise them off with a putty knife and add them as collage elements to a painting. The painting that I showed yesterday dried flatter than I expected, but all the new shapes are still visible: I continued working on a different painting. Here's a photo of me brushing a thin wash of white paint over the surface: I then poured fluid acrylic into the wet surface, making circular shapes that immediately started to spread out and bleed into the surrounding areas: I will now let all these things dry for a few days before beginning the process all over again, adding texture, washes, and drawn marks while allowing the previous layers to be partially visible.   Subscribe ...