Thursday, January 07, 2010

Oversized Work in Progress

Beginning a biggie - here's what I did...

First strokes of color.

Cover the surface with color.


Experiment with ways to move paint around.

Things get messy, muddied... let dry...



Start to break up the surface again with line.



Getting in there with more contrast and color.


And here's where I call it quits for the night. Who knows where this painting will end up - we'll find out tomorrow...



TODAY'S GOAL(S) - Set up a painting corner in the basement (for the cold months when I can't use the studio and, as you can tell date-wise, this is long overdue for the season) - check!

Start a mega painting - check!

Research web hosting sites - semi check... still undecided and there's lots more to find out. I used to have Yahoo Site Builder and I'm looking for an affordable template drag and drop style hosting site. I've looked into intuit a bit as well as webs.com today. Any suggestions?

6 comments:

Maria-Thérèse ~ www.afiori.com said...

This is very exciting to see!
I will now attempt to study how you manage to create all that depth!

Rob Reeves said...

Very exciting, Jessica! I love working big. How did it feel to you?
Wish I had a good suggestion for the hosting. I built my own site. Probably shows.

CountryDreaming said...

While I love where your painting ended up for the night at the end, being a fan of purple and someone who doesn't paint beyond having taken one strange workshop, I can't help but wonder why would you start out with beautiful gorgeous purple only to cover it up?

mano said...

it's very interesting to see your working process. I think the most difficult is to stop the painting at the rigtht time! I am curious about it. (sorry, my english isn't perfect..!)

Unknown said...

Maria - lots and lots of layers of paint, putting it on, wiping it away. Trial and error builds up and leaves a trace...

Rob - Feels great! My favorite painting prof from way back when told me I NEED to work big because of my size (very tall, long limbs) and as soon as I did everything freed up. I haven't done it as much as I'd like through the years because of the cost of materials but I'm going to be working in a large scale more frequently now because, well, I just have to.

CountryDreaming - This is the first painting I've done in a while and it's common to how I work when I've been away. I approach the canvas with every idea and color and technique in my mind and it's like a warm up exercise instead of a consistent path towards a solid direction. The more time I spend painting, the more focused I become and every action has a purpose. Give me a couple days and I'll be back to that place. For this piece, there were several places that I could have just stopped but I didn't and a certain look was lost in the process. Somehow that's cathartic and neccesary to the whole cycle.

mano - yes exactly! Like I was saying to CountryDreaming, in these warm up paintings it's usually the case that I go past that stop sign several times. The longer I work, the more deeply into the zone I get. I am looking forward to feeling that zone again soon...

jen d said...

hi Jessica! nice painting--i love seeing the progression documented like this! it's like a shape-shifter that's paused for a moment :)

on the website building: i just signed up for squarespace.com. it's very much drag and drop, has wiki elements etc. there is a learning curve, but i'm farthest from a techie and i'm (slowly) getting the hang of it. what i love is that it's suuuper customizable and has a lot of functionality. good luck!!!