Thinking About My Art

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As discussed in my previous post, it took about 2.5 weeks in residency before I started feel like I was getting a grasp on the painting I wanted to accomplish.  My approach for doing these paintings evolved over and over again.  One visiting artist told me that she really appreciated how willing I was to follow the path provided by the work itself.  I really believe that one must follow where the work leads as you never know where it will lead and it beats trying to force something that just isn’t working.

These next images I’m going to share are for work that I felt become more consistently successful.  I began to figure out how to apply paint evenly across a large surface.  I learned how to get the hard edges I wanted.  And I learned how to compose the image so that the color and wood grain worked in tandem.  The next batch of images is below:

Not Yet Titled #1
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

#1 is the first piece I made where I used Tracy Helgeson’s feedback, both in terms of simplifying the composition and also using mucky colors.  I was happy with the result and Tracy was too.  We worked out a trade and now this piece is in her personal art collection.

Not Yet Titled #2
Acrylic, polyacrylic on walnut plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #2
Acrylic, polyacrylic on walnut plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #3
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #3
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

#3 above is the first piece where I took the strategy to have the paint follow on a specific grain line in the wood.  In other words, I counted out from the “center” of the grain five rings.  I then applied the paint right on that fifth ring.  This allowed the paint to truly “work” with the wood and also gave the paint a more organic feel.  I liked this solution and leveraged it many times.  It reminded me of my approach to an older piece, Shadow.

Not Yet Titled #4
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #4
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

In #4, there were two areas where I was able to leverage the woodgrain to define where the paint would be applied.

Not Yet Titled #5
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #5
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

In #5, I am working with the grain, but not being defined by the grain.  Both ways of working interested me and I was intrigued by how each approach felt similar yet different at the same time.

Not Yet Titled #6
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #6
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #7
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #7
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #8
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #8
Acrylic, polyacrylic on maple plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

#8 is clearly a bit of an outlier in this group.  Here I wanted to use the color form to impose more upon the wood.  I’m still thinking about the wood grain and about what I want to be visible, but I let myself be less organic than before.  As a result, I think this piece may have more tension than the others and that may be something to further explore in the future.

Not Yet Titled #9
Acrylic, polyacrylic on walnut plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #9
Acrylic, polyacrylic on walnut plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #10
Acrylic, polyacrylic on walnut plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

Not Yet Titled #10
Acrylic, polyacrylic on walnut plywood
12″ x 12″ x 1″
2010

By the time I completed #9 and #10 above, I felt that I had a pretty solid grasp on the technical aspects of these paintings and I also could allow myself to be more experimental with color.  I felt these last two pieces were well-done and that I could then tackle the larger panels I had been saving up.  In the next post I’ll share the six 16″ x 16″ maple panels I completed and another that was 24″ x 24.”  For me, things started to get much more exciting at this point.