by Susan Lobb Porter | Art |
Well my sweetums, if you read yesterday’s poor excuse of a post you will recall I PROMISED you pictures today.
And you shall have them!
First are the eagerly awaited evidence of studio construction.
This is the back wall, the one opposite the door. The only plywood still to go up is the triangle above the windows. Is that the eves? Well, it was too high because it’s on a hill and Mr. Spouse decided next week will do.
And this is the front. With Bean sniffing around. Probably tinkled on something because he’s a dog and this is quasi-outdoor territory.
The wall of windows to the south. They will never be this clean again. Oh, that’s right, they’re not up yet. Ohhh…look at those boxes of skylights!
Okay, so now I’ll show you some paintings. Almost done. Not quite ready but close enough for show and tell.
I’m calling this one Family Tree. There will be more detail. More gold accents. It’s acrylic on canvas.
This one I’m calling River Rocks. Acrylic on canvas. Needs more layers. Stones need more work. Everything does. But I like to show works-in-progress because I think it’s cool to see where it’s been and what it becomes.
Reminder: If you are participating in Random Acts of Art Wednesday (RAAW) and don’t have a blog to link to, send me your photos TODAY and I’ll post them along with mine. If there are too many for the post I’ll make a gallery. There will be a place for links tomorrow. I hope to see LOTS of links and photos!
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art
I’m sitting on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table. Big exhale…I’m tired, a good tired. Been a good day, spent a lot of hours in the studio. I stocked up on canvases last year. They were on sale locally, 70% off if you bought a case. SEVENTY PERCENT. So I bought them by the case. All different sizes, from 3X4 feet to 5X7 inches. Big fat gallery wrapped canvases. CASES of ‘EM.
Ahhh…
And then I spent the summer and fall painting on wood. That’s just a little bit of it, up above. Plaster and wax (both hot and cold) need a solid substrate. Something that won’t flex and crack. So I built cradled panels, so many I can’t even tell you. I almost sorta forgot about all that canvas. The elephant in the room.
Not any more. The studio is chaos right now. So many works in progress. They’re all in acrylic. Not my favorite medium, not after the juicy lusciousness of oil or the richness of beeswax. And plaster is just plain old fun. But then acrylics mixed into glaze medium and layered and layered and layered and then turned into something magical…ah, I can handle that.
So I spent the day painting backgrounds. Just backgrounds. Random strokes, random colors. Filling the canvas. It’s fun, really. No ego involved, just me and the music. And with all the canvases I have, I could be doing this for the next month. Eventually the paintings will come to me. And when they do, I’ll be ready to go.
For a look at how a painting evolves, check out my recent post ‘Making Peace’.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art |
Three canvases, two 2×2, one 3×4. Good size. Good music. Good time in Studio Grande.
Works in progress. Three layers? Four? I don’t even remember. But that doesn’t matter because there will be many more before these are done. Not my usual palette, I’ll warm them up. But I want to retain some bright too. Tomorrow…tomorrow will see.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art
Studio time today. YAY!!! Got to paint. Got to make ART!!!
Pause here for backflips. Handsprings. For jumping up and down and waving arms wildly.
I MADE ART TODAY! In between lumber yard runs for the new studio. In between other stuff that had to be done. I found the time. Squeezed it in. And it was lovely….
And it was different. Today I used acrylics, just because… I’m not sure what the ‘because’ was other than I wanted to play with layers and the drying time is faster than oils. And I can always add oils to acrylics later on, but not the other way around.
I worked on three pieces today. Two 10×10 clean, ripe, ready for my attention virgin canvases. The third one was 12×24 and been around the block with some charcoal. That’s the one I’m going to show you today. It’s the closest to being done of the three. Not finished yet, maybe tomorrow, but I want to show you the process.
Because it was so much fun. So liberating. Not a doodle but similar in the layers and layers of surface treatment. And relying on the random happenings of the surface to trigger the final design.
Now I’m going to let the pictures do the talking.
First I had to say goodbye to to da pony. I grabbed some acrylics and squeezed directly onto the canvas. I wasn’t concerned about color this early in the game. I just wanted coverage.
Which I got.
Many layers. More colors. Textures with stencils. I used the brayer, my fingers, water crayons. The trick here is to wait between layers for things to dry, otherwise you get mud. I still didn’t have a clue where this was heading.
I added more paint. Sprayed with water. Let it drip. This wasn’t the first spray of the day. When this dried I saw some images. So I painted around them. It’s still not finished but this is where it’s at now.
And no, those are not blue afros. Or maybe they are. Come back tomorrow and maybe we’ll both know.
