Day Seven

8"x10", acrylic & permanent marker on paper


8"x10", acrylic & permanent marker on paper


8"x10", acrylic & permanent marker on paper


9"x12", acrylic on paper

As I'd mentioned yesterday, I had a lot of this grayish brown color made from phthalo green (blue shade), cadmium red light, ivory black, and white. I noticed as I was working with it that the pigments would separate if I let water sit on the mixture for a while, making green and red pools and suchlike - it was a very strange thing, considering acrylics usually form a rather stable and definitive mixture.

I played around with a bunch of watery distributions, then went back in with colored Sharpies to define the spaces of the background plane. In the first piece, I think the red works to provide tension between the forms and the plane, as well as demonstrate awareness of the flatness of the surface and correct any misapprehensions of illusionism... in the green and turquoise accents, I don't think this effect comes through at all really, and apart from some nuances of form, I think they're much lesser pieces.

Of these pieces, the fourth is probably my favorite, as I think it goes beyond a simple design to start suggesting forms existing in space (yes, I know, I just said I was trying to deny that), but in an abstract, idiosyncratic way. I felt this one had enough color separation that inserting a backdrop would disrupt its inner continuity, and since I actually liked the way it existed on the page, I kept it as is.

I also started working on a much larger watery piece at the suggestion of my boyfriend, who plunked a stack of delicious paper in front of me and said "Come on, you can do something more than these." We talked about the sense of grandness when a person encounters a large piece with strong presence, and though I'm always making arguments for smaller work (I guess I'm rebelling against this bigger-is-better mentality dominating the art world), I have to agree: it's one thing to discover tiny and intricate worlds in a painting in an individual experience, and it's quite another to stand before something edging on epic and feel actual awe and intensity.

My semester starts next week, so this weekend in addition to reorganizing my studio space, I want to complete some larger, more developed pieces. I hope it goes well.