FMP Painting Five

Final Major Project Painting

Number 5

For my last painting in the FMP series, I decided to transcribe a dream based collage I'd made before (pictured below). The reason I chose this collage is because not only did it fit in well with my project proposal, but there were graphic elements I was excited to try and incorporate into my painting. My intention was to keep things abstract, but I wanted to mix elements of figuration with the abstraction. 

I tried something slightly different with this painting by applying gesso in roughened textures to various parts of the canvas. I still left most of the canvas raw. I wanted to see side by side the difference this would create in texture and transparency. I quickly sketched out the obvious shapes from the collage, without trying to keep things too perfect.

I liked the way the canvas is coming through the blues, particularly in the top left hand corner so I initially wanted to try and keep this this segment undisturbed. The shapes here were very simple which I was okay with. I didn't want to get too hung up on perfecting the imagery. At this stage I was more concerned with slowly building the paint and color, paying attention to the textural components. The peach paint bled into some of the blue here, which I ended up liking and chose to leave visible. The most successful aspects of the painting so far are the hues of blue and the canvas coming through the weaker layers of paint.

I began to add brighter and more saturated colors here, careful to keep the shapes defined as they were.

The aim at this stage was to introduce texture shadow. I had waited for the paint to dry between this layer and the last, so I could determine where I wanted to go in with more paint. I decided to deepen color mostly over the blue and coral sections. I think leaving large segments of the original layers of paint visible and uncrowded added a sense of depth to the painting.

At this point I put the painting up on the wall, which I've found to be helpful because it allows me to see the painting in its entirety from a distance. This helps me evaluate the painting as a whole, and less successful areas become apparent more quickly. Putting the painting up on the wall also allows for gravity to play a part in pulling on the paint, creating textured effects I find interesting.

At this stage I liked the graphic feeling the painting had taken on. The colors are adopting an energetic and fresh feel, but the painting still feels too careful.  The painting looks as though I have approached it with a hesitant hand. For this reason I took the painting down again and decided to apply more color. I allowed myself to approach the painting with less caution by loosely pouring paint across the canvas, using a large rubber wedge to shift the paint around.

I waited for the painting to dry fully before I continued, this allowed me to see the colors in actuality.  I decided to depart from the cleaner more defined and hard edged structure of the original collage here, and in doing so I began to introduce more color and more texture. I allowed for some of the harshly defined lines to be obscured, and for shapes to begin melding together. I poured thinned orange over some of the areas I had intended on keeping pure blue. This resulted in less predictability in the painting.

I placed the painting back up on the wall and added some linear detail and definition. The painting had taken on much more depth in color at this stage which I felt satisfied with. The painting began to take on dreamlike (even nightmarish) and disorienting characteristics to it, which is exactly what I had hoped to achieve. I like the way some of the original markings are still present, and the layers have been built up slowly and deliberately but not too carefully. There is chaos within this piece even though I initially approached it with so much caution. I worked all the way to the edges as I normally do, knowing I would loose some of the painting in the stretching process. This did not concern me as I thought that stretching it would improve the overall composition of the painting.

Stretching the canvas made it feel completed. I do not miss the edges of painting that were lost, and feel the overall composition has been improved. The only thing I am debating is whether the painting should be rotated onto its side (shown below), in doing this I think it changes the the way the shapes come across, making them more difficult to work out, which I really like. 

I am overall very pleased with the outcome of this work. It feels like a natural next-step for me in my painting. The introduction of figuration in abstraction within my painting feels slightly more contemporary than the paintings that came before it. I am excited to further explore these features in the future.

I like the way the painting wraps around the edges of the painting, this gives the painting continuation when you view it from the sides.