Blog 23 May2013 Picture to go with Belfort 2

I had photographs taken of my work by Tom Gates, what a great job he did, it was fascinating watching him work and make something of what he was reportedly supposed to have said about having to work with nothing there! I thought that was acceptable as these images are for my series 'there and not there (3)' Here is an image that links to my blog posting for Belfort 2 -10 May 2012

Can you see the white on white, I hope so, I am using the density of paint to project the image.

Blog 10 May 2013 Belfort 2

BLOG        Belfort-2 10 May 2013

As part of my "There and not There' series 3 made for the exhibition in May 2013, I've just painted white on white, and its made sense to me. I've re worked the curves I originally tried for my image Belfort 1, in October and November, nearly driving you all mad with the colour, line and position changes or requests for information on how to paint without making brush marks.

Shaun managed to move me forward in someways by suggesting blackboard paint and gloss paint, sadly that had a sense of failure as I tried them out on those cheap canvas things and both came out gloss, but not showing brush marks, so thank you Shaun. That is a way forward.

Now with the white on white, you can't see much anyway!- But it is not that easy, the white on white took nearly as long as the original to resolve and for me the top curve is not defined enough, nor is it as accurate as it really needs to be. One further problem, I am unable to take a successful photograph.
What am I to do about this?

April 2013- see it if you can Barocci at the National Gallery

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Barocci: Brilliance and Grace, at National Gallery

A perfectly sized exhibition of 'Religious Art' completely over awed me, it was not one I would have selected to see but now I know better. Barocci at the National Gallery, an open evening for students with a welcome glass of wine left me spell bound. His use of colour and the amazing ability of this incredible artist. Interested in finding out how artists apply paint and particularly in how they achieve 'smooth surfaces' it was pleasing to hear that Barocci technique was the simplest method 'finger painting'.

I hold in my mind the colours, they were so clear and bright, I have found it difficult to focus on my grey tones! For those of you working on portraits look at Barocci's self portrait - eyes are something special. I am sorry that I can not show here just how good they were.

I am really disappointed that I cannot post the pictures.

Blog 6th April 2013

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BLOG 6April 13

As part of my preparation for our end of FdA course exhibition I have been working on a number of paintings in grey tones, these relate to deconstructed buildings or abstracts. (2)

Here I have tried the lifting material for vinyl cuttings, its wrinkled because its on tracing paper to keep it intact but I did not use it as a stencil I cut a Frisket stencil from it. The Frisket stencil worked better than previously, the areas involved were much larger .

In the image below you can see how this worked on the top half. My original drawings were smaller and I did not like the balance in the enlarged work. I thought I would try adding more detail from the 'building' and because I only wanted vague images I
used torn paper, in fact this procedure worked really well but the 'whole work' did not come together.

I forgot to photograph the work at this stage which is a pity, I would have liked a record of the effect, I used a very thin Paynes Grey wash, which left a very nice jewel like navy blue residue.
The work however was very out of balance and very disappointing.

I have now made major changes and only the original stencil work can be seen on the surface.

AND this needs changing because the grey tone is wrong !

Where am I going wrong, why can't I get this right first time? Can you help?

Blog 4 April 2013

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BLOG 4April 13

As part of my preparation for our end of FdA course exhibition I have been working on a number of paintings in grey tones, these relate to deconstructed buildings or abstracts. (1)

I have planned and tested what I intended to make, using a new (to me) low tack product (Frisket) to make my stencil. This I tested in a smaller proportions and it seemed to work well in some cases and not in others.

Frisket, it seems is designed to be used with spray paint rather than roller or paint brush. This has in fact affected my plans as I had hoped to be able to move away from frog tape. I can make wider areas of masking with frog tape but overlap becomes difficult to cut and as a result a bleed can happen.

I spent quite a few hours measuring, cutting and applying Frisket for this work, satisfied that all the rectangles were straight etc I applied paint, the frisket moved and you can also see bleds, it is possible to remove some bleds by scrapping off or even removing with water but nothing can sort out the movement.

I think this was because of the surface texture which was not smooth, having been rolled on tends to be a little like sandpaper.

I have applied Frog tape where possible and the squewd background provides interest, but it is irritating to me.

I am not rushing, I try to work carefully, I measure, maybe colour mixing is not what it should be but what else should I be doing? I am not sure I want to work in the surface for ever but I would like to develop further the effects .

Blog- 20May 2013

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Blog 20 May 2013

The Extra Image

Extra image required- my daughter said “told you so , told you to make a spare!”

Process and no

“its not just a dumb way of making work ...without any craft....”David Batchelor 2009

I peeled the Frog tape off and the paint had leaked under it!

I had cut up frog tape so it was 40mm wide, lots and lots of frog tape, placed 30mm apart with the aid of tweezers and a ruler on a very dry surface, then I had divided it all by cutting areas away so that the effect of slatted blinds could be seen, each blind stopping at the end of another part of window.

I carefully pressed each length of tape down to be sure paint would not creep under. Oh the frog tape was all placed at an angle-that did not make the task any easier, and as the light came through the window I was trying to communicate, it changed direction so of course did the frog tape......

Three/ four layers of paint, not the usual number.

But the paint had leaked and the reason I think was: I had made an impression of trees into my background surface and because the surface was slightly uneven the tape had not held its resistance. The surface was not damp the underlying tree images were made two weeks ago and left.

The image was a slatted window through which you could just make out a tree in winter.

But the paint had leaked.

Under14hours left.

The slats of the windows had to go, so that the leaked paint would go, out came the sandpaper and off came the paint -

and another more interesting image (another tree which I thought I had sanded away before starting work.) emerged.

The painting changed, so did its balance and it stood out from its crowd.

What should I have done?

I am suprised at how many blogs I have written and stored over the past months, tonight it has taken me a long while to find my way back to this site so I can at least post them all.

I am sorry that you may have to try to make sense of them, as no doubt they will all have the same post date, but some go back as far as November 12 , they should follow in chronological order but I know they won't. Mostly each has a heading with a date. Hope that helps.