Been Painting…

All paintings are multiple experiments.

A3 size paper … could I sketch my cat and have it come out realistic? Her head is too long, has to be rounder next time

Could I use grainy paint and make that represent fur? sort of.

Could I make her eyes seem to look at the observer? Negative on that so far.

Could I tie the background together using a gesso glaze? Glaze too thick, blotted out the detail. Cat is sitting on a blue couch. Can’t really see that.

The original technique of spray and paint didn’t work all that well, need a better spray/misting bottle.

Other than those points I’m pretty happy with it.

The Gesso Project …

Finally able to do a bit more work on my big painting project. Out on the balcony it’s been either too hot 36 degree Celsius, or too wet, or both.

Today an early thunderstorm and short period of rain cleared the air. Painted the sky, a plain blue. Half of the mountainous mid-ground, a variegated green and brown.

As it’s drying, I notice hundreds of places where the paint hasn’t touched, or the paint is shrinking back. It will need a third coat.

It’s meant to be a backdrop for my brick stories.

Next time …

Gesso’ing …

Starting a large new project with a four x A3 length of gesso and tissue paper …

In other words, laying down a landscape and at the same time attempting to camouflage the joins.

The whole thing sodden with a mix of water and gesso. And that is a jar of medium strength watered-down gesso still possible to use as paint. s

A econd jar with a jellified gesso that had to be scooped out and softened to a paintable sloppiness … glad I got to it when I did as next week or month it mightve been to dry/hard to use.

As usual, I’m re-using remnants of an old project. I’m sorry to discover that the joins are very obvious in a photo.

The hope for this first stage is that the paper backing dries flat and I get rid of the big vertical … what would you call them? Not creases. Give me a hint? I can only think of a couple of Dutch words. ‘Rimpels’ and ‘golven’ spring to mind.

One of the things about old age is that ‘mother tongues’ IE the language a person grew up with, tend to come back. And I’m definitely noticing that. If I can’t think of an appropriate word in English, I’ll come up with a Dutch one.