Slow Starts
I look at my past life as at a field lit up by the sun when it breaks through the clouds, and I note with metaphysical astonishment how my most deliberate acts, my clearest ideas and my most logical intentions were after all no more than congenital drunkenness, inherent madness and huge ignorance. –Fernando Pessoa
It’s almost been a month since I’ve posted–two since I last posted a painting. I’ve been struggling with producing anything of note this new year. I did, a few weeks ago complete my shirt project with something around 14 shirts, 9 of which were shipped around the states. I think I got a better sense as to how to make shirts and stencils. I was hoping for this to be a spring board to painting, but it hasn’t. I’ve mostly painted, repainted, and ultimately, been unsatisfied with my work. But, I think in keeping with this blog, I’ll post what I’ve actually finished:
This is the most recent work I’ve completed. It’s actually a canvas I never finished working on last year, and I decided to paint over it and start over. Out of everything I’ve done so far, I think this holds together the best.
I spent most of my time recently working on this. I had the hardest time trying to pull all the elements together and to get a coherent piece. To me, this is really fragmented. I did the face first with a head dress taking up most of the background. I reworked everything, including repainting the face. I sort of came to terms with this, knowing I was only making things worse the more I worked, so I left it. At least I used brushes for almost of all of it…
This was the first thing I’ve done on hard board. This is all hand painted–I’ve been playing with Chinese brushes to help clean the edges. It’s super glossy and I haven’t done the work to piece together scanned parts…
I took an old canvas and covered it with polymer while the paint was still wet and let it bleed underneath. The top didn’t stay even. I don’t know if a blow torch is the secret to a smooth layer or not…
This is another old canvas that I was playing around with.
So this is it. It’s not much. I had thought after two months I’d have more to speak of, but things just haven’t worked out that way. Push ahead, I guess…
