I have been enjoying marvelling at 3 canvas’ primed ready to go, for the last two weeks. I find there is something so exciting about looking at a white canvas. It is so full of promise!
It was time to get started though.
There is nothing quite as contradictory as that first sweep of the brush across it.
That moment where you jump into the making of art. The canvas is no longer pristine, you have begun.
There is a lot of faith in that action.
I may have a general idea of what I plan to accomplish with a painting when I start it but I have found, invariably it ends up quite different from that vision by the time I am finished!
The journey in between is full of every emotion ranging from excitement, challenge, frustration to the ultimate high of surrender. There definately comes a time once painting has begun, when I have to hand over to the a power greater than I.
It is forever new!
Sometimes the light or lack of it, will be my guide, sometimes a song playing in the back ground will play a dominant role in the force or pace of the brushwork, often the shadow play on the canvas will illuminate the area to be addressed.
My main objective is to stay open to these channels and work with them. I have to trust what I don’t understand. I have to be prepared to make ‘mistakes’ in order to proceed forward!
Often, I find what I may mentally perceive as a ‘mistake’ is the highlight and success point in a painting.
It could be a color that asked to come in, that seems to break the ‘rules’ but I use it anyway and find it was just the right hue to tone back another color or highlight and area in a way I couldn’t have visualised.
I love the relationship I have with myself in the studio.
I have the trust of a child with my tools and the reward is a freedom and daring I don’t find in many other area’s of my life. it is the one place where I really try not to second guess myself.<
It is healing on many levels.
Last night I took that first step with the Trypych. I had in mind the basic colors to begin with, Cad Red Deep, Cad Yellow Mid and Ultramarine Blue.
They are colors a client mentioned favouring in previous works, whom is looking for a large work to fill her 4mtr wall. I am not painting it specifically for her but it was a starting point and I need another work in this color range for my Exhibition, ‘Messages from the Soul’ in February.
It was exillarating! First went down the Yellow Cad… Huge sweeping statements, all 3 canvas’ worked on at once. I felt the warmth of the yellow all around me as I worked the paint onto the canvas. A bit like bathing in the sun.
Then came the Cad Red. Filling in the surrounding area’s. It was intense and satisfying.
The ground that awaits me tonight is ready for the application of the Ultramarine. I need the former paint to be at least touch dry, so the colors do not blend too much at this stage. Blending comes in later. At present I am just building the framework for the paintings’ direction, the richnesss that will eminate from the depths of the finished painting.
I feel the anticipation all day of my time in the studio, later on in the evening!
I wonder where the color will wish to be laid and what will become of the shapes. What story will they tell me? How will they like to be worked?
The ground stage of a painting is very raw and quite quick to execute. The detail and thought process comes in toward the final layers, where I do chose to apply glazes and hints of color to unify what is already there.
I keep applying color until there seems to be a resolution amongst all the colors, an agreement, a harmony reached in their differences when a unity is realised.
A wholeness that is made up of all the individual frequencies that went in to it’s making! So much like life!
This Tryptich belongs to ‘The Fire Within’ Series!