Sunday 15 January 2012

Plumage will fly....

Abigail, newly displayed on the wall of my gallery today

The new picture - Abigail - has been completed and is now being displayed on the wall of my gallery at Upstairs Art Studio at Murrurundi from today. To the right of it are "Pages River" and "Bridget with Bright Flowers"

In my last post I said I would show and explain step by step the process of how I build up and create one of my artworks.

The theme I want to explore is "Plumage"...so some of the ideas this evokes are: feathers, flight, wings, fluttering, movement, flash of light, sky.... Some of what attracts to me to these ideas is simply a reaction because the last work was so still and static (Abigail) The colours will certainly be different, I usually will go to the opposite complementary colour, or monochrome after a series of coloured works.

In the picture below is the development of absolute day one of "Plumage". I ripped a piece of canvas 70 x 93cm and painted it all over in a darker than mid tone grey acrylic paint. When dry that colour was then broken up roughly with slashings of a lighter shade paint. I don't use base coats of gesso, as most artists traditionally/conventionally/practically do, because it hinders my ability to machine embroider into the surface. Because gesso is virtually a thin plaster (thick with calcium carbonate, or chalk) it tends to rip my polyester machine embroidery thread to shreds and cause constant breakages when stitching. So I have adapted to painting directly onto the cotton canvas surface without any sealer. This means the canvas is much more porous and it is necessary to build up many more layers of paint than would normally be required if the canvas was primed with gesso.

Plumage - day 1, blocking in the form

 The figure is blocked in with light and dark paint. I will probably work on the face next. To me this strongly creates an emotional mood in the work. Perhaps it is a bit like writing a book....you have to have a strong sense of the character to create the story around.

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If you are interested in buying an artwork or booking a commission, please email me at pearl@upstairs-art.com.au