LINE AS TEXTURE PAINTING STAGE 1

I absolutely love Ann Bagby's paintings. She makes her own stamps. I have purchased the necessary materials to do so, but haven't taken that step yet. I have made some stamps with this very cool stuff that you heat with a stripper gun and then press into a textured surface to create a stamp. You can reheat this foam block with the gun and the image disappears and is ready to accept a new impression. I used one of those stamps in this painting. It is the area around the eye in the detail image. The rest of the stamps are purchased. Click on each image to bring it up in a separate screen, enlarged.

I drew my image on Yupo with a permanent finepoint pen. Then I created a stencil from tracing paper for each shape so I could stamp just the shape I wanted without slopping over into the adjacent area. I thought about keeping the stamped tracing paper to use as collage but decided it wasn't usable. I think next time I will use tissue paper for the stencil so I will have good collage material left over. After I finished the stamping using regular archival stamp pad ink, I redrew the lines with a heavier line. I'm not sure I like it better with a heavier line, but everything is an experiment and gaining knowledge for next time around.

This process is really forcing me to slow down! I need to embrace the process. I completed this step last night and started painting it today. Very slow going but it is looking interesting. This looks nothing like anything I have every done. It does have a graphic quality that I am seeing in lots of contemporary work these days.

I hope everyone is having fun trying new things. Can't wait to see what you come up with. I have added a number of new paintings to the slide show, so check it out again.