FMP Painting Four

Final Major Project

Painting # 4

I decided to use this painting from my sketchbook(below) as a guide for my new fourth painting. I mainly extracted the shapes and composition that I liked, as well as some (but not all) of the color ideas.

I began by sketching the shapes out in charcoal, working again on raw canvas. I wanted to try and get some texture down in deeper colors into the foundation of the painting, allowing for the raw canvas to soak up these details first. I have found this makes the first marks on canvas more defined and therefore they can more easily be transmitted through overlaying layers.

The colors here are sickeningly vivid, but I wanted some of these to shine through in the end. Most of these colors were intended as only a base, and meant to be toned down.

I began pouring paint onto the canvas here, and dragged it around with a rubber wedge, building layers in color on the background. The surrounding purple is an idea taken from the small painting from my sketchbook. I really wanted to leave parts of the canvas raw all the way to the end of the painting, as I have learned through my previous paintings and sketchbook studies that negative space has become very important to me in my work, and creates a feeling of layers.

Here I began to deepen some of the colors taking away some of the vividness I didn't like. I began to merge some of the smaller shapes I found too busy. Things were beginning to come together for me in tone and shape qt this stage,  and the painting started to take on some depth.

Here I began to fine-tune some of the colors, adding deep blue over some of the muddier areas, which I think worked well. I also began defining some of the shapes and lines, adding textural components in charcoal in certain areas (especially the bottom of the painting). This idea is also drawn from my experimentations in my sketchbook. I wanted there to feel as though there were drawing elements or language within this piece.

I am pleased with the overall outcome of this piece. I think my sketchbook collage work translates well into this painting. I like the areas where I was able to keep the first placements of texture and the washes of thin color. The shapes here have a sense of flotation and movement which I was trying to achieve. Again I think one of the strengths of the piece is within areas where some of the canvas has been left blank and raw.

I am beginning to think that this painting will look much better stretched, as I think it will tighten the painting compositionally, and help to smooth the canvas since it is uneven in certain areas. Similar to my process with my first and second painting, I was constantly rotating this painting on the table as i worked, which I think helps to alleviate the more obvious applications of paint. I finished with the painting on the wall again, allowing for gravity to drag some of the paint down. I think this is a nice touch. It gives parts of the painting a sense of weight which I find interesting. If I could change something, I might have rethought which shapes I should have chosen to keep blank and raw. I think some of the other shapes may have been more interesting left blank. The empty spaces should have been spread out more as well, rather than one on top of the other, as I think this would have drawn the eye across the canvas more dynamically.

This is a detail of the segment I find most interesting because of the variety in texture, the drawing, color, and the layers of paint applied. The gravitational pulling of the paint I previously mentioned is also slightly visible here. I think the painting could be interesting cropped like this.