Playing . . .the Game of Painting

Connections    50x70cm        oil on paper

I have finished the last  painting that I will be presenting to my mentor, Janice Mason Steeves, in a few days.  This time, I can really say that I experienced the "fun" in painting  that Janice has always said is a must.  That loosening up that eliminates any tension, any self created fears of making "mistakes". janicemasonsteeves.art blog.

First, I layed in my lights and darks using an idea from the value studies done previously for Janice. I decided to use a limited palette of blues, yellows, greens and black. My brushes were large as were my spatulas.  I didn't want to fall into the temptation of creating small details and minute forms so LARGE painting instruments were best.

As usual, my forms are  internal anatomical shapes  but this time, once they were in position  in the overall  design, I began to have fun distroying them. At first I used a large, homemade bamboo pen that I made years ago and "drew" into the wet paint breaking up the solidity of the forms. Then, using only my spatula, I built up the negative space around my forms with thick layers of paint concentrating on lights and darks, forms and movement. Again, I wanted to lighten the forms by breaking into them so I chose to use a brayer which picked up  and deposited color  creating movement and light within the forms.  I scraped and rubbed away the color. Nothing was "sacred".  Nothing untouchable.

What I wanted to achieve was a less formulated composition, to express the strength that is an essential part of these forms without making the whole too heavy.

I was in a rush to begin working for my fourth and final session with Janice but I wanted to work on a panel, not canvas.  I  had to wait too long for the delivery of the ordered  panels so decided to work on paper.  I sized the paper with gesso, pinned it to my painting panel and began.  Maybe the use of  paper gave me the strength to mess around, to "distroy" and to go ahead again.









These are the instruments I used. Spatulas, a brayer, my bamboo pen and . . . a Ferrari red spatula sent to me by Janice and "fun" to use.








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