2020~Something Polymorphous This Way Comes (Art in the Time of COVID Pandemic)

Step 1 and 2 spontaneous mark-making with watercolor crayon (black and ochre) layered with matte medium to stabilize.

2020~Something Polymorphous This Way Comes 

24"x18" watercolor crayon, matte medium, acrylic on canvas

My intention when I began this painting was to make marks with the watercolor crayon and to honor them when I added paint. I challenged myself to be as spontaneous as possible (mostly because I've been missing spontaneity in my life during these lock down days). I promised this painting that I would work quickly and in whatever way it told me to work. 

My initial marks were the tower on the left that began as asemic writing. Tower completed, I moved the crayon across the top and down the right side. When I went in with a paintbrush to add the matte medium to stabilize the watercolor crayon marks, the black and ochre smeared and came onto the brush, into the medium, and became part of the new marks as I moved down the tower of writing. I knew it would smear, so I took enough time with this part of the process to notice how that happened and what could come of it--how the original marks changed, were enhanced or slightly disappeared.

Then came the adding of the colors. Admittedly, I'm really into blue and orange these days, so they dominate. I was also wanting to mix the blue and orange on the canvas to reach an appreciative brown. I'm satisfied with that. I have purchased some cadmium free yellows and red (Utrecht from Blick) to play with and used these freely in the creation of the shades of orange. I applied the acrylic paint using my fake chamois. It's almost as if the paint could dissolve away with the change of the wind or water. I rather appreciate the effect this had on the canvas and in the composition.

In the end, this painting made me laugh. And then I struggled with the title. I could see a reference to the local marina where I had been a couple of days before beginning the painting, the mountains in the distance, the dock, the wabi sabi of the abandoned vessels, the water, the beautiful colors and shapes of the oil slicks on the water (in spite of their environmentally ickiness). 

But I wondered at what that creature/thing was at the top center of the painting, that thing that's leaning in and placing/removing one of the bits. I wondered at what was moving in toward the tower...was it a good thing...was it a bad thing...was it just a thing...another variable to be dealt with? Then I thought of a line from Shakespeare's "Macbeth": "By the pricking of my thumbs/Something wicked this way comes." And I started to laugh--as much as finishing my painting made me laugh. "This is like 2020," I thought. Then I became somber about it all: We did not see this coming at this point in time, along with everything else that we've got going on (if you're paying attention, you know what I'm talking about). So I changed Shakespeare's line a bit and exchanged "Polymorphous" for "wicked." It's a horrible, multi-dimensional, shape-shifting thing that has come our way. So much loss of life, of loved ones, of ways of life, ways of being. Resources stretched to limits. Societal contracts broken. 

And that's just the beginning...

Still Reworking--Still Point:Gestating

So here it is again, after gold-gessoing out the bottom right and upper left and putting in the colors of oil slicks and peacock feathers. Still not finished, though. But my balance problem of leaning to the right is mostly resolved. I hear that the lower left quadrant is not quite working, and frankly, it was troubling me, so I'm relieved that's confirmed. I think I need red there. And I have yet to be successful in completing the top of the gold that runs over the two circles in the middle space. I've painted and repainted that area. The painting is still trying to tell me what goes there. 

Reworked Version Still Point: Gestating

I'm still reworking this painting but feel pretty close to finished. I resolved the split personality that happened when I added green after I'd been working the copper/violet. I think I need to come in with a little more gold in the space above the three circles. But after the red was added, I could feel myself smiling--a smile that started in my toes. That's often how I know a painting is finished or very nearly so. 

Now I just need to learn how to use my new/first digital camera along with the cropping tool. There's always some new technology nipping at my heals. It provides such a challenge.

Still Point: Gestating

This painting is undergoing a re-make. The problem with painting a series is that when it is finished, you always have one in the series that's weaker than the others...unless of course, you are really, really accomplished at what you create...something I'm still working on becoming. 

So this was my weakest. I never really liked the way the paint went on. I could never really figure out for sure what was on top where--dark or light. I loved the marks and felt the paint did not do it justice. So I whited it out. Gessoed over all of the textured part of the canvas. Then went over the center, mostly low-lying section (except where the three circles are, that's raised, which part of the what's on top problem) with pearlescent. That was really cool. And made my decision about the light being at the back, dark on top, mostly. Then I had to figure out what to do next. I love gold gesso, so I chose that to go around the center section. 

Now what? Must add color--I kept the surroundground blue. Then I started working with violet mixed with red toned copper. That was cool and very dark and shiny (the moist part, you know). Then, on the lower right quadrant, I put in blue-green. Created an obstacle to overcome. Now my painting was divided by color. So that's what I faced when I entered my studio tonight. I was loving the elements, but not how they were together, had to make the painting more integrated. So I started adding blue-green on top of and around the red-copper-violet. And I was entranced by the close-up effect. I wanted to do that everywhere in the painting but had to stop myself.

The color combinations and effect made me think of peacock feathers and really colorful bruises (I had one that had amazing color that moved from knee to ankle and back for a period of about a month after I fell hard on my knee once) and gorgeous parking lot oil slicks. I love studying oil slicks after a bit of a rain. I know it's not cool when you consider what they really are (same with bruises, right?) but have you really studied the colors and the shapes? They quite often create mandala shapes. And they are blue with green and red-violet and a goldish-brown and dark, dark. Next time I see one, I'm going to drag a stick or something through it to see how it can be manipulated. Come to think of it, once I saw a jellyfish on the beach at Penn Cove that had all of those colors in it. It held my fascination until the tide threatened to take it back into the water. 

All this to say, that when I left my studio tonight, I felt like I was overcoming the obstacle, meeting the challenge. I like that feeling. I won't get back into my studio for a couple of nights, which is a bit of a frustration...don't want to lose momentum.