COMMITMENT!

THE CLAN #5 FINISHED

THE CLAN #5 DETAIL

One of the reasons I signed up for Mike Bailey's Watercolor Beyond the Obvious for the fourth time is the commitment that is involved.  Every week for 10 weeks, I am committed to paint two full sheets of watercolor paper and show up in class with them on Monday morning.  Why we can't seem to do this on our own shall probably remain a mystery, but I know that this commitment pushes art up to the top of the To Do List.  I managed this week to finally finish my tax documenting and drove it to my accountant so she could prepare everything for Uncle Sam.  Other things kept popping up as well, but constantly there was the thought that I needed to complete two paintings.  I planned in my head, spent some time getting the ideas down in my sketchbook, then spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning having the best time experimenting with bringing my ideas to life on the paper.  

Here is painting #5 in the series.  I was interested in trying a vertical format with the high horizon "compression" composition.  I am trying to keep to an 80%/20% contrast  and this division of space is close to that goal.  Integrating the band of faces with the metallic negative space was an interesting challenge.

The horizontal band was done by putting black gesso on an aluminum foil strip cut to the size I needed, using a brayer, then waiting till the shine left.  Placing it gesso side down on the paper and drawing with a dull pencil (don't want to pierce the foil!) on the backside.  I put my tracing paper sketch over the foil and followed the lines that way.  When you are done, lift off the foil and the black gesso lines are transferred plus some additional gesso marks from where it touched the paper.  I probably got carried away with too much gesso and became impatient for the shine to leave.  I transferred a lot more black than I originally intended but liked the result.  It looked a lot like a woodcut print.  After completing the rest of the painting, I had to decide if I wanted to add some white lines so the faces would be more obvious.  Without the lines is was pretty abstract looking.  I photographed the painting with my iPad and then put the image into a painting program where I experimented with drawing white lines.  I was able to preview what that would look like before making an irreversible decision. As you can see,  I decided I liked the addition of the lines.

Tomorrow I will post #6 in the series.  I have my idea for #7, so I am off and running!