I took a second Painting class at PNCA, this one with Jef Gun. Unlike the class with Cecilia, we only worked on paintings in class, and since I am a slow painter I am fairly displeased with most of the work done in the class. Although I did gain even more appreciation for Cezanne’s early work. The only homework that we did have was to complete one painting during the course of the term applying a concept touched on in the class. I choose to do a painting using the six tertiary colors. Interrupted View, which at 24 x 32 inches remains the largest work I have completed to date (though I’m thinking about making changes so maybe it’s not so done).
Because of the time constraint (I realize most people wouldn’t consider five weeks to be a constraint, but once again my paintings take time) I painted in a slightly more direct manner. And the limit I placed on colors results in less modulation, creating the bolder, more delineated look to the painting.
As mentioned in the previous entry I was somewhat frustrated with some aspects of the glazing process, including the time require, the difficulty to change the composition in mid to late stages of the painting, and the fragility of the painting (when the finished paint layer is measured in millimeters, the painting tends to be very susceptible to scratches and chips). So having completed a couple more direct paintings in Jef’s class I decided to continue painting in this vein for a time.
Now mind you, my interpretation of painting in a more “direct” manner would still be considered by most to be indirect painting, i.e. I’m still painting in semi-transparent layers. Be that as it may, it was at least two times faster and more direct than my usual indirect/glazing style. This period at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 resulted primarily in the In the Shadows series. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Aside from experimenting with painting methods, the experience of doing a larger series was valuable as well. I didn’t realize that I was starting a series when I began, which was a big mistake. Once I had completed the first one I had to try to make the next three look like the first one. Two of these three I didn’t finish because they were awful and one was okay but looks nothing like number 1. I decided to change the size of the support and the scale of the forms/subject in 5, which is the one I’m probably the most fond of from the bunch. Then I entered a show specifically for square foot pieces on canvas, so 6 thru 9 reflect this with the change of support (I’m not a big fan of canvas, but it had been awhile, so I figured why not) and another change of scale in the forms.
I did about twenty mockups after I had started 6, but once I had finished 7-9 I was ready to move on. With 7-9 I finally realized that if you want things to look similar in style you not only have to not only do the mock-ups for them in advance, you need to paint them all at the same time. This makes sense but also means that you have a lot of unfinished work for a long time and then all of sudden finish a bunch in a week. But again I had made the mistake and completed 6 first, then tried to make 7-9 look like 6. I haven’t managed that skill yet, and I spent more time trying to make paint recipes to keep my colors similar and making sure that the level of contrast and values were similar than working on refining the composition. With a deadline and trying to make the paintings look similar I never quite finished them to my satisfaction. But I learned some lessons which I am taking into the next series I have started underpaintings for and another series that I have mocked-up.
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