My first painting in this series was about establishing a routine. Although I had retired and you would think I might relax – nope!
My work routine was established during Post Web 1 and the entire process was mostly a series of random paint pours. In this painting I decided I would use a more controlled approach yet still rely upon randomness to create the overall composition.
In my previous project (Post Web 1) the technique was mostly paint pouring experiments. I think I was watching too many YouTube videos during that time. Rather than doing one pour per painting I was layering my pours allowing each pour layer to dry first.
After a month of that I realized for me the pouring technique was too much about watching paint dry. So for this painting my goal is to stick to brush work.
Step 1: to start this painting I just started throwing paint around on the canvas (not literally of course). I started with my favourite fall back move – clouds!
Step 2: once my canvas was covered with clouds and greenish foliage like areas I noticed I had used flat colour strokes of paint. Hmm … maybe I will pursue that direction. I began looking for larger shapes and then covering those shapes with random flat brush strokes of varying colour.
Step 3: at this stage I completely covered the canvas in random brush strokes. Most of the strokes were of the same size with some variance in value. I continued to look for bigger shapes that I could refine.
Step 4: I was now beginning to see spiral shapes in the random brush work. It is at this point that I now start to compose and make creative decisions as to what direction the painting should go.
Step 5: I’m now manipulating the image to my vision. However, that vision is still based upon the randomness of the brush strokes I created from step 1 to step 3.
Step 6: more refining of the shapes and introduction of colours other than the cool blues and violets. At this point I was also starting to “see” various forms develop.
Step 7: big leap at this stage. I decided to clearly identify every shape by outlining them in black. I then glazed various solid transparent colours over each shape. I did however choose to leave the “background” area as random brush strokes.
Step 8: after having glazed the shapes I continued with flat brush strokes in each area. I am also now experimenting with colour balance and relationships.
Step 9: the above example may be too small to notice but at this step I decided to give each brush stroke a sense of form by adding a highlight. So for example, anything that was an orange stroke I added a lighter value of that same orange. The placement of these lighter values is also determined by how I have perceived the form of the shape.
Step 10: I consolidated some of the smaller shapes into larger shapes. I continued to play with colour relationships and also added a third lighter value to individual brush strokes. I allowed myself to break my own self imposed rule of having the direction of light come from a single source (or I simply screwed up).
Step 11: the painting is done and now just a matter of final touches like where to put my signature. I had a blast doing this painting. I accomplished what I wanted. The painting became a form of mediation. I could easily add just a few strokes in a 2 minute session or devout several hours adding hundreds of brush marks. I’m ready for Post Web 3 – I want to exploit the techniques learned here.
