Those of you that have been following this blog will remember these famous last words on seagull experiment. I wanted to,”…combine my current favorite elements, brushy paint strokes, a rendered beast, and some flat abstract shapes.” That’s all! No big deal. All I have to say now is phht!
It started out ok, I got the shapes.
It took me all day to figure out how to tape off and paint really clean shapes on a super textured background. I did it too. People actually thought they were collaged on there. I put shapes in. I took shapes out.
I showed it to my friends. They hated the shapes. I explained that I was trying to create space with the shapes, and that it was an experiment. This seemed to make them like the shapes a bit better. So much for being an aesthetic or perceived painter. This painting was requiring words for validation. Not a good sign in my book. I liked the seagull, the background, the pink shape, and the gray shape in the foreground, but I knew it wasn’t working. I showed it to many of my studio mates until, finally, Scott Inguito said what any self-respecting art critic would say at this point, “Paint out all your favorite things. They are holding you back”. I hate when people say that…grrr. But I knew he was right. I had said it a million times myself. So what did I do? I disregarded Scott’s advice and made a last ditch effort to save all my favorite stuff. I was worried that if I painted the good stuff out, there would not be anything left. I was going to be starting over anyway, so why not try to cheat painting death? I figured I could block stuff out, but still keep parts of my favorite things. So I took a tar like black and edited out a lot of stuff. It looked like the seagull had been caught up in the Exxon Valdes oil spill.
I used soap to dissolve the heavy paint and get some drips. So the experiment continues…
man that's a tough process. love reading about it...and all the collaboration.
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