Gathering Forces

24"x18" mixed media, acrylic on canvas. (no longer in inventory)

Back to the gel medium and lightweight spackle for this one. There's no denying, this mixture is really my favorite for texturing. I applied the media after studying Kaethe Kollwitz's work, in particular, "The Carmagnole (Dance around the Guillotine)." Her composition shows a city scape with common folk dancing in the street in front of the guillotine. What made me connect with this particular piece of hers? The current events being driven by those in power in Washington D.C. (around the time of a certain controversial hearing conducted by a senate committee).

Once the media dried, however, I couldn't connect with what I had created. I couldn't tell what I was trying to communicate. So I turned the canvas 180 degrees and decided to paint it as if the thing were burning down. I did come to think of it as a gated structure being burned, with the fire starting in the streets. And I wondered about the toxicity of the smoke--that structure above the flames--sometimes it looks like a lioness, sometimes a gargoyle, sometimes Beethoven's head.

This painting has been finished for about 5 months, and it's still one of my favorites. Usually, my favorite is the one I'm working on now...

Ascension Descension Rumination

(Completed re-working foreground 9/2023--no longer muddy under any lighting situation. I feel like I can breathe when looking at it now.)

(7/2023 Determined to be too dark and muddy in the foreground in some lights, so re-worked.)

(I've decided this painting is unresolved and am working on it still)

24"x12" mixed media with acrylic on canvas (and detail photo)

I was still experimenting with texturing media here, trying to decide to purchase more gesso or more gel, so, for this one, I mixed gesso with lightweight spackle, applied it to the canvas and used mark-making tools. After letting it dry, I was concerned that, since I had used so much spackle, the surface would be too absorbent and would crumble if I used a lot of water in my painting process, which I sometimes do. So I decided to cover the surface with gesso and applied it with a fake chamois cloth in order to avoid brush strokes on the surface. The result of adding a dark layer of paint first shows in the detail photo--an effect I rather like--the dark with the lighter colors applied on the top. 

The other idea I was playing with in this composition was the idea of vertical text on the left side of the painting--painted blue green. Whether it translates as text to the view or not would depend upon the viewer's experience with Asian art, maybe. Or I suppose it could be seen as some part of the structure or a form in the background. I was curious about the interaction between the forms above and a bit to the right of the staircase-like structure (there are so often stairs). And that was the impetus for the title. Are we going up together or down together, or are the above and the below forms crossing paths as they move from one plane to the other? Is strength being transmitted from one form to the other? Is this communicating tension?

The Squiggle Effect

(no longer in inventory)

5"x5" acrylic on canvas. Playing with a rubber band ball that my cousin made and gave to me, I put paint on it--orange, black, and blue--and rolled it around the canvas. Then I put white on it and rolled it around, covering, in part, some of the previous color marks. Then I decided to have fun with black and brown fine point acrylic markers. In order to create dimension and movement, I worked off of and around some of the previous marks that were partially covered. Making the squiggle lines was so much fun that I had to stop myself before the canvas was completely covered with squiggles. Maybe next time, I won't stop. So stinkin' much fun! And this one can be turned depending upon what forms one wants to be able to see. (This was a paint over of the last painting in the Pictem II series--I was never satisfied with that drawing/painting)