I've been working on this painting continuously since I first posted an image of it July 1 (by continuously, I really do mean 24/7, of course). The paper just couldn't take any more physical contact -- it had become extremely abraded and fuzzy -- so I switched over to using an airbrush and painted it in many layers alternating between a deep blue-black acrylic in the mid to dark areas and white in the light to mid areas. That beefed up the color in the abraided (dark)areas. The development of color, texture (quite genuine sculptural texture, albeit fuzzy), an unusual impasto, and a kind of battle between white and black through all the layers of light and dark is VERY INTERESTING to me and has stimulated me to move in some new (actually ancient -- I'm thinking mid-value ground with light and dark scribbles defining the image out of the mids, like renaissance chalk drawing, maybe) directions which I'll continue to experiment with later this summer.
In the meanwhile, gentle reader (always wanted to write that somewhere -- now seems as good a time as any, right?), here's the current (and final) state of the painting I first showed in my July 1 post...
Self Portrait, 43 x 27 inches, July 10, 2007, painting in acrylics on Rives BFK
Self Portrait, 43 x 27 inches, July 10, 2007, painting in acrylics on Rives BFK
-- Mike
¶ 6:56 PM 4 comments links to this post
Another 'gesture' painting -- this one uses the same gesture character set as my earlier (and smaller) airbrushed "Jim", but the gestures are slightly larger (1/4 inch squares) and are painted using the Paasche Flow Pencil, so the tip touches the paper. It's painted on Rives BFK, so the paper surface has been abraded quite deeply -- more and more with each additional stroke of the tip across the paper. I like the effect, but it interferes with the clarity of the line and with the paint flow, so I imagine that I'll use a stronger paper for my next effort.
self portrait in gestures, July 3, 2007, ca 59 x 32 inches, acrylic on Rives BFK
movie (~4mb be patient)
In the movie above and photos below, three colors have been painted in order: black, yellow, red. A final color, blue, is starting to go down along the left side of the portrait.
painting underway -- starting to lay down the blues
detail of area around eye -- three colors down
detail of area around eye -- completed
-- Mike
Labels: painting
¶ 10:48 AM 0 comments links to this post
Self Portrait, 40 x 22 inch image area, July 1, 2007, acrylic paint on Rives BFK paper
BFK is a very soft paper -- because the tip of the flow-pen actually touches the surface, the paper becomes abraded (deeply abraded) as the tip repeatedly passes over the same areas. The very rough and sculptural surface is quite attractice in this painting -- everyone who's seen it wants it. My wife, I think, got 'first dibs'...
-- Mike
Labels: painting
¶ 10:32 AM 1 comments links to this post
Painting blue/black acrylic paint on self-portrait #2
I'm working on a short series of painted self-portraits at the moment. I've mounted a Paasche Flow Pencil (very much like an airbrush, only without the air -- the 'nozzle' is conical and a needle valve seats in the nozzle in order to control the flow of paint. The Paasche is not a very high-precision device, so fluids which aren't very viscous (like water) flow out quite fast, even when the valve is 'closed'.
I suppose I could'a figured this out in advance, but it seemed to me that coffee or tea stained paper would make a good first trial image and clean-up would be very easy... WRONG! WHAT A MESS!
So viscosity about like cream works quite well.
First attempt -- connection to solenoid broke and pen never lifted so paper got messed up!
Because the pen doesn't have many parallel surfaces -- it's all cones and curves and joints, it wasn't easy to conceive a way to hold and actuate it. In the end I decided to make it easier for me to construct the gizmo and so I made it to kinda work backwards (power-off allows paint to flow -- so when it stops, paint keeps running). A single solenoid both lifts the pen off the paper and releases the trigger, stopping the ink flow while the pen is moved to a new painting location. When the solenoid is 'off', a spring pushes the pen down onto the paper or canvas and actuates the trigger at the same time.
The paper surface on my 2nd attempt is now badly abraded with 'fuzz-balls' all over the surface in the darkest areas -- next attempt I'll use a heavily sized paper and adjust the height of the flow-pencil so it JUST BARELY TOUCHES THE PAPER!
I'm VERY excited about the possibilities for color work, both directly (painting flat areas of transparent color), and especially indirectly (using weighted gestures again) since the flow-pencil produces a VERY sharp-edged line -- much cleaner edge than my airbrush!
-- Mike
Labels: painting
¶ 8:42 AM 1 comments links to this post
