First FMP Painting - A larger exploration of color and space on raw canvas

First FMP Painting

A larger exploration of color and space on raw canvas

I have decided to move away from using oil in my paintings, and have been favoring acrylic paint thinned with water and a flow improving medium instead. This helps the paint to soak into the fabric more easily, saving time. The reason I have chosen to proceed with only acrylics rather than both acrylic and oil is because I think I will be able to accomplish more narrowing things down to one medium. Working between the two mediums as I had initially intended is difficult, switching back and forth. I also favor the quicker dry time with acrylics for this project, and I am thinking it will lend itself to more ambitious opportunities for creating work within the time frame I have to work with. 

Beyond this I think I have a slightly better understanding of how to mix color more effectively with acrylics, as this is the medium I am slightly more familiar with. The more I have been visiting exhibitions and doing research on other artists, I have begun to feel more and more fascinated by division of space and shape within a painting. I wanted to use my color studies and experimentations to carry ideas forward into my more final pieces, but I also wanted to keep these interests about shape and space in mind when working. 

To begin I started by sketching quick loose shapes on paper, and then cut them up so I could easily move them around and play with different arrangements. Once I had done this for a little while I started my first quick sketch on raw canvas with charcoal (below).

From here I began painting around some of the shapes, drawing color reference from my previous color study (with the figures), except this time I knew that I wanted to keep my oranges and pinks close together but separate.

I wanted to approach this painting with a lighter touch than I had in my color study. I was careful to use less paint and thin the paint with water in some areas once it was already applied to the canvas. I mainly poured the paint on to the canvas and moved it around with a rubber wedge for this part of the painting. I also wanted to be careful to leave some of the canvas completely raw, I felt it was important to pay attention to negative space.

I decided to bring in some of the textural components from my previous color study which I found interesting or successful. I think they were successful in the sense that they were able to bring an organic feeling element to the piece. I used raw charcoal to pencil in some of these textures with a heavy hand, as I wanted some of the charcoal to come through the layers. 

I decided to bring in some of the blues from my practice color study here which I had liked. I liked how they had blended with some of the existing colors. This happened because they had been applied wet on wet. I wasn't convinced I liked the way the colors were aggressively contrasting one another at this stage. I was unsuccessful here in some ways because I had initially intended for the blue to bring some light to the painting. To do this I should have left some canvas plain to be painted over thinly with blue, allowing the canvas to come through and bring the light to the painting. I did not do this so instead I tried adding some white paint to the blue. While this did bring some highlight, I didn't like overall cloudy/murky feel the white introduced. I would have preferred a cleaner translation of the blue.

 At this point I decided to leave the painting to dry so I didn't oversaturate the canvas and could see the depth of color more accurately. I was pleased with the shapes and how they were arranged compositionally, but needed to begin improving upon color.

Although I initially intended to keep some of the textural components from my practice study, I ended up not liking the way they looked, the colors where flat to me, lacking depth and the patterns felt too busy. I did like some of the outlines of shapes I had to work with, and I chose to move forward emphasizing those. I wanted to begin bringing in some more defined architectural components to the painting here. I wanted to explore the shapes of place and building similarly to the way one explores places within their memory- a bit distinguished, a bit vague, floating, almost dreamlike.

This was a breakthrough moment for me in that I began to feel I was achieving exactly what I was trying to go for. I liked the deeper washes of color bordering the lighter layers underneath. The messiness within this painting was intentional. I  did not intend to keep everything fully in the lines, and I allowed paint to drip, splash, and bleed in certain areas. All of this to me has added to the expression and character in the painting. I wanted to add some entryways in this painting, creating what could look like doors or windows, passageways. I liked the Richness in colors here, but particularly liked the spaces where I had left the canvas blank. I intended to keep these areas like this. I now wanted to add more texture, without being to careful of the marks I was making.

I wanted to bring in some blues and grays to compliment the warmer tones, but I was careful to not overdo them. I moved the painting (which I had been constantly rotating while painting) from the tabletop to the wall, so that I could see the painting better, and to also allow for gravity to play a small roll in the direction of some of the paint.

Overall I feel this painting has been a success and a big step for me in terms of progress. I feel this is the first thing I have made for this project which really embodies my curiosities about place and shape, and how shapes can interact with one another. I like the way the piece is fragmented, the way our memories are fragmented. I feel this piece exemplifies the way we recall memories, broken scattered and blending together. There are hints of everyday objects here, but I was careful to stray away from making anything too obvious, leaving most forms in abstraction.

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