Monday, May 26, 2008

EXPERIMENTAL PAINTING FAILURE


This is a painting I have been playing with the past several days. I tried to paint watercolor on a regular canvas. I thought because it was coated by the manufacturer with gesso, that it would accept the paint. Well, not so! The paint just beaded up. I tried massaging it and working with it but not much success. I did get some color to stick, so I sprayed it with an acrylic spray. Let that dry. Then I coated it with full strength Clear Gesso so I could save what was underneath and then tried painting again. The paint didn't bead up but it crawled beyond the lines and generally was a mess. I was ready to totally cover the whole thing up but decided to play with what I had since I could hardly "ruin" it. It was already "ruined". This is a very freeing situation when you have a dog to play with. I added line with a pen and full strength liquid watercolor. I used some watercolor crayon here and there. Overall, it turned out fair. I will probably wind up reusing the canvas later. In the meantime, I will leave it as is. I think I prefer laminating watercolor paper to a canvas rather than painting watercolor directly on the canvas. There are still more experiments to be tried.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have had decent luck coating a primed canvas with 'ground' made by Golden. Paint will not saturate like it does on paper...only paper does that...but I would say that the paintings were successful.

Cecelia said...

Actually, the painting is quite striking! If we didn't know about your struggle, we would have thought that it was supposed to be like it is. We all learned something from your experience. I would not have thought of painting with watercolors on gesso, at all. I thought that it needed to soak in and stain the surface.
Do you dilute the gesso when you apply it? Just wondered.

David Lobenberg said...

Myrna: When the going gets tough, the tough get going...you don't give up easily...you are one tough....

Evolving Expressions said...

This is an amazing painting, I wouldn't call it a failure in a million years.

Anonymous said...

I do like you "failed painting".
the portrait looks like a "wild African dancer" to me.

How do you laminate watercolor paper to canvas?

Lena Bogart

Michelle Himes said...

You may have struggled with the canvas, and you may not be happy with the result, but I like it a lot. I'm glad you didn't give up on it.

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