Moving beyond focus to atmospheric

Although my last blog post was about the need for focus in creating a painting (and that is clearly still important), I’m moving beyond that into … atmospheric.

I’ve taken one of my Ronda paintings that I wasn’t completely happy with (and didn’t include in my last blog) and I’m applying a new technique (new to me, that is). First, the original painting:

Ronda

This painting is about the bridge finally, but it just wasn’t thrilling me.  As I was pondering what to do about it, Frank O’Cain suggested I try flinging paint at it to make it more atmospheric (à la Ching-Bor, whose technique we happened to have been discussing).  Even though Paul Ching-Bor is incredibly successful, his work is largely black and white and I wanted to work in color.  So with all the gay abandon of a total novice, I mixed a lot of the blue, yellow and red already in the painting into a kinda neutral color and starting flinging the paint.

Well, it was starting to look “atmospheric” but I wasn’t sure this was going to work.

Ronda ver.1

Frank said to just keep going that I had to make it a lot darker.  So I did.

Ronda, ver. 2

But there is almost no sense of what the painting is.  So I started spraying with plain water and blotting with paper towels to uncover more of the bridge arches.  That didn’t work so well — it just made them lighter.  So I went back and darkened key parts of the painting and then starting flinging again, this time darker.

Ronda, ver. 3

Okay, it’s getting better, but it’s certainly not finished. Then again, I’m not sure how I will know when it is finished.  My apologies to Ching-Bor.  To be continued…

 

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9 Jul 2014