"Orad Sin Cesar" (draft 4)

(draft 4)

Today I have changed the title of the piece. This is just one of the many things that can happen when working.  All of the fragments I have included from my old bible are scriptures about crying out to God. This title just seems to be more appropriate to the piece.

A little over half of the piece is now adhered to the support with gel matte medium. I also laid wax paper, a book, and a large rock on it overnight. This definitely insures that nothing comes up as I move into the final stretch. You can now see how the white toned pieces also create their own shape as well as the yellow at the bottom. I do love the idea of staggering the separate pieces in such a way that everything seems to be interlocking. And it's much more interesting than having each color be in a straight line.

So what I have learned about when to adhere the separate pieces is to get one color section adhered at a time. It is not doable to try to keep pieces where they go and having to constantly put them back in their places. However, it is important to wait until all of the pieces in a particular color range are placed before adhering to the support.

Another point to note is that it is not necessary to lay out a double palette of colors to create this kind of piece. (Even though that is the way to achieve color harmony when creating a painting.) This technique affords you the opportunity to use up some of those odd colors you may have purchased when you didn't know better.

The yellows, for instance, are raw sienna right out of the tube. I then mixed raw sienna with some cad. yellow light. Liquitex Parchment color plus cad yellow light created a nice chartreuse. But you can see that they are interspersed throughout the yellow section to create some interesting echoes. And I am doing the same thing with the blue area. I like mixing cobalt blue with cobalt turquoise and then throwing ultramarine blue in the mix. It makes for a very interesting color arrangement.

So if you want to work larger, you might want to give this approach some serious consideration. It allows you to work section by section to create a very dynamic surface treatment. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"Color Conversations"

($40.00.....6" x 6"....mounted on a 1/8" depth clayboard panel)

"Colors have conversations in every piece of artwork." If you are an artist and you think of colors having conversations, it will help you in your color placement and decisions. Some pieces have quiet conversations and in other pieces, the colors are constantly interrupting and everything is chaos...very much like all of us when we're talking, talking, talking etc.

In using a technique like pouring medium...the way the color is applied to the paper from edge to edge accomplishes a lot of the color placement issues for you. You can then make a few more changes when you crop your final piece.

In a technique like the one used in today's piece, it is quite a different story. After mono printing your rice paper, the papers are then adhered to a support. (In this case, it is 140 lb. HP) When I cropped the piece from a larger sheet, there was the large blue shape on the right, but there was no connection with the other half of the piece other than the text collage done in the first layer.

In order to have both sides of the piece actually have a conversation, it was quite necessary to adhere a piece or two of the blue to the left side. That keeps the conversation going and also keeps your viewer engaged in your piece. The eye is always...always...looking for connections and so the visual artist must have these echoes of color running through the design. Also notice that the Gold Orange (Holbein Acryl Gouache) is also entering the conversation along with the silver leaf. It's a whole new way of viewing color and I hope it helps you consider what kind of conversations are happening in your own artwork. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.