During my hiatus on the blog, I posted from time to time on Facebook, so I’m going to update my postings here to include that material ‘for the record’. A painting buddy challenged me to post seven paintings in seven days. Here’s what I offered for Day 1:
Challenge accepted. I’ll start with one that’s different from my usual style ~ some abstracted shells done in a class at the Yellow Barn last year.
I’m currently taking a class on mixed media and was intrigued when teacher Susan Hostetler mentioned “mock frescoes”, made by painting gouache into still-damp spackle or joint compound slathered onto cardboard or other heavy substrate. I decided to try it. My first attempt was a simplistic sugar bowl sitting on our kitchen table. My quick contour was misshapen, so I touched it up with some water-soluble pencils, moistening the marks to blend them into the gouache.
I then plopped down a seashell (interesting shape though dull colors) and tried again. I was happier with that one, though disappointed when a little flake popped out sometime later. Maybe a fixative would deter this type of defect — will have to research it. . . .
Sometimes it’s fun to challenge yourself: can you make a painting in a very limited number of strokes? Say, 15? I decided to try it the other day. I placed three shells from my beach-combing stash on a sheet of paper and attacked, carefully plotting color and placement of each stroke. At 15, I was itching to do ‘just a few more’ to beef it up ‘just a bit’, but gritted my teeth and concluded the effort. Here it is, along with a snap of the shell subject.
In keeping with the spirit of the test, I made only a few light guidelines for size and placement, before constructing the design via ‘color-shapes’.
