Exotic

Exotic, Acrylic on watercolor paper, 10"x9", NFS

Report from Camp - Part 3

This painting was actually painted a few days after I left the workshop. During class, we had made a number of abstract substrates to paint on. As part of that, we applied a variety of gels, pastes, mediums and textures as we learned how each of them looked and acted in a variety of conditions. This one has modeling paste, gel, copper paint, pumice paste, gesso, and more, smeared around using palette knives. My palette for the background is Phthalo Blue (Red Shade), Alizarin Crimson, Indian Yellow Hue, and Iridescent Copper Light (Coarse.) For the painting, I added Titanium White and Carbon Black.

The idea here was to assign the background a value (light, medium or dark) and leave that showing anywhere that value appeared in the portrait. In this case, I assigned the background a dark value - that meant most of the portrait would actually be painted positively over the background; only the hair was truly dark. I have other substrates ready to go - I made a point of making sure they were lighter so I can make them a larger part of the face. 

My next step is to decide where to take what I learned. There are a lot of pieces and they need to be integrated into my work in a way that reflects what I want to say and how I want to say it. That will be an on-going project.