Today I completed this (little bit scary) portrait of my Mom (Joanne) painting in white and black Golden Liquid Acrylics over paper tinted blue-gray using dilute sumi and prussian blue applied to the paper by wiping with a sponge.
This and the previous painting of ‘Lee’ completed a few days ago are experiments in the sort of light and dark over mid-value drawings which were popular in Europe 400 years ago. I’ve selected two examples from the Goldman Collection of Italian drawings. I was lucky to see the exhibition of this wonderful collection at the Chicago Art Institute last year — you can obtain the FABULOUS catalog of the collection from Amazon.com well worth the $47 price!
My approach is very similar to the tack I took with my “Jim” lithograph — overlapping layers of line to communicate the value gradations of the image, but the paint makes these much more tactile — the paint builds a very heavy impasto as it overlaps and makes an interesting if somewhat bumpy surface — I LIKE these!
the painting begins with white acrylic paint applied to tinted paper
here the white painting is about half done
the white painting is complete
painting of black is about half-done -- LOVE those moire spirals!
detail showing the Paasche Flow Pencil painting black over heavy impasto
painting of black nears completion
the painting is complete
detail of painting
'Lee' and 'Joanne' complete