Another Abstract Underpainting

The markers and inktense pencils haven’t really been working out for me over the last week or so, so I thought I’d better brave the cold outside and get back to the watercolours.

This is going to be another painting that starts off as an abstract and that maybe turns into something more representational. But this time, I thought I’d go all out on textures.  So, to start with, I went for granulating colours: French ultramarine, raw sienna and viridian.  I also threw in burnt sienna to keep things grounded and earthy and because it makes such a good double act with the ultramarine.  And I included quinacridone magenta because the green needed an intense complimentary to keep it under control.

I prepared the paper first with a spattering of  masking fluid, trying to get a bit of a diagonal pattern going, to put a bit of energy into the painting.  I put on a couple of strips of masking tape because I was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at this painting.  They were put in positions that added to the diagonal energy from the masking fluid.

Then I put on the paint, making sure it was thick enough for the resulting painting to be able to stand up for itself rather than being doomed to being an underpainting.

And, finally, I added bubble wrap, French stick wrapper, a net bag that full heads of garlic come in, cabbage leaves and a bit of salt in  the only remaining empty space.  Then I weighed it all down with bricks and left it overnight.

I opened it all up this morning.  There is a video of this happening but you’ll have to search for me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3304681352957790 ) to see it as it was too big to be put up on blogger.  So how did all the textural tools work out?

– The colours definitely worked.  Lots of granulation.  Burnt sienna mixes well with absolutely everything. And the green and magenta vibrate strongly when on the same page together.

– Masking fluid spatters always work.

– The masking tape has a weird effect.  The photo of the painting looks like the painting is at an angle, with the two corner triangles being a work surface under the painting.  It adds a tension.  I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing.  And there’s been some leakage under the tape, especially in the bottom right but that’s not a big deal.

– The salt hasn’t done much this time.  Just a little bit of crystalisation in the brown at the top, just to the right of the tape.  It hasn’t really done anything in the green and purple just below it.

– The cabbage produced those branches in the top left below the tape and the blobs in the top right corner.  They were always going to look like bare trees and it feels like a bit of an easy cop out to me, especially if they end up as trees in the final painting.  Maybe a I should have tried one of the leaves the other way up for a bit of variety.  Still, every cabbage leaf on the paper is one less on my dinner plate.

– The bubble wrap was used in the top left and bottom right, producing the expected result in one place but something different in the other.

– The French stick wrapper took up all the bottom right quadrant except for the triangle in the corner.  It produced a similar effect to clingfilm as usual, but was better for the environment.

– And the garlic bag produced the “bacteria under the microscope” effect around the middle of  the bottom half.

So far, this has been pretty successful.  I now need to think for the rest of the day about whether to leave the painting as it is (tempting!) or to turn it into something else.  If I do change it, the most likely plan at the moment is to keep it this way round and to turn it into a sleeping cheetah woman.  There’s a cat-like face that the French stick wrapper has produced, along maybe with an elbow to lean on.  And there’s a red shape that could be the bottom half of a torso and a pair of legs.  It would have to be a cheetah woman and not a leopard woman because of the pattern of the spots in the top left corner.

I still have time to think about this though.