Posts tagged ‘raw canvas’
It’s talking to me …
Any artist worth her salt will say the painting “talks” to her. No beginning artist really understands. “Talks?” But it’s true and I have a current example. It’s talking to me …
I have a photo taken in Antigua which I love. I’ve wanted to paint it for years: the shadows on the path, the light shining through the trees … It’s a very complex landscape so I decided to do a sketch to try and avoid some of the pitfalls. Here’s the cropped and greatly simplified sketch.
Without thinking about it too much (my first mistake), I sketched it very lightly on a 18×14 piece of raw canvas taped down to a larger piece of foamcore. Using fluid acrylic only slightly thinned with water, I started to paint the land next to the path and noticed that getting hard edges was going to be difficult. Well, duh. The painting was already starting to “talk” to me.
But I was committed, so I started on the trees with fluid acrylic thinned with a lot more water, since I wanted it to be fairly light to start. I would make it darker with additional layers of paint. By now the painting is fairly “screaming” at me.
What should have been nice smooth edges simply weren’t. Taking a deep breath, I decided to “listen.” I stopped and let it dry.
Background: I paint on raw canvas with thinned fluid acrylic because I like the soft- (in some cases non-) edges, the atmospheric effect. And because I wanted that effect for the leafy part of the trees, I ignored the difficulty I was going to have with the branches and tree trunks, the ground and path, and the shadows.
So this isn’t a made-for-tv story with a happy ending … at least not yet. I confess I kinda like this jagged edges effect and I certainly right now have no idea how I’m going to make this work. I could continue as is with all the edges being jagged, and see how that turns out. Or I can try to “fix” the edges, but that involves matte medium and a lot of work. It’s going to take a lot of thought (what I should have done at the beginning, since I know how unforgiving raw canvas is and how hard it is to correct mistakes).
So I’ll think about it over the weekend and then decide. It certainly would have been better/easier if I’d “listened” to the painting at the beginning.
I’m not a scientist …
Lord knows, I’m not a scientist … anything but. But when I wasn’t sure how to paint the image I had in my mind, I knew it was time for an experiment. I’d been painting with watered down acrylic on raw canvas to achieve a misty, atmospheric effect. I knew that was what I wanted for this image, but for some reason was uncertain of how it was going to work. So I decided to experiment and try it on a smaller piece of raw canvas…
As I’ve done many times, I tore off a sheet of canvas from a canvas pad. One side is gessoed and the other is raw; I simply paint on the back, or raw, side. When I taped it down to the foamcore board, I had to check to make sure I was taping the gessoed side down. And then when I put down the first water wash, it wasn’t acting like raw canvas … but I shrugged it off.
Since the image in my mind was almost monochromatic shades of gray, I decided to mix my own gray from Ultramarine Blue, Naphthol Red and Cad Yellow. Tested on paper, it looked good. I could make it lighter or darker by adding water (or not).
My first few strokes of gray on the wet canvas told me this would be a whole new experiment. Obviously, this wasn’t raw canvas. The paint was simply swimming around too much, like watercolor on Yupo. Clearly the manufacturer had gessoed both side of the canvas. To make matters worse, as I watched, the gray paint started to separate into its component colors. Was that because of the smooth gessoed surface? Was it the water? No clue.
I also had no clue what to do with what I had done so far. So I let it dry. Well, nothing ventured nothing gained, I picked it up the next day and tried to continue the painting. When I painted on top of the initial strokes, the paint didn’t swim around so much … and also didn’t separate so much.
Watercolor on Yupo years ago yielded some wonderful effects; this I wasn’t liking so much. About to write it off as a failed experiment, I had to reconsider when two artists whose opinions I value, said the painting “worked.”
Bottom line: It’s never going to be my favorite painting. And, though it was an experiment, I’m not sure what I learned, other than to avoid putting water-thinned acrylic on gessoed canvas. Oh, and to double check the surface itself. The self-mixed gray? I may try it again, next time on raw canvas, to see what happens.
There’s really good news
There’s good news. Not only did our massive rainfall only last one day, not only did the flooding in our basement only come from ground run-off (not the City sewer system), not only were our elevators out for less than one day… There’s really good news: the Art Students League re-opens next week for Fall classes (Yay!), AND I’m back to painting on raw canvas (for awhile stretched raw canvas was hard to come by).
Of course, nothing is ever perfect, and it turns out that I had forgotten some hard fought lessons about how to paint on raw canvas. Basic lessons like always check the jar is tightly closed before shaking it up to thoroughly blend the paint and water mixture (mistakes are excrutiatingly hard to correct on raw canvas). Basic lessons like keep your canvas horizontal until the paint is completely dry (unless you DO want those drips).
I’d expected to have to remind myself how much water to use, how long to let it dry before adding the paint for wet-in-wet, and what to do when you do make a mistake. Ah well, if this were easy, anyone could do it.
So here are the two paintings…
Painting Peaceful was anything but peaceful. I propped what I thought was the final version on my easel to take a photograph, and then forgot that it was still wet. Hours later I had two dark blue drips that took many, many efforts to fix. And, of course, every time I looked at the latest version, something else had to be adjusted. But the end result does look peaceful and reminds me a lot of my early childhood winters in Canada. Whew!
Whenever I used to get on a plane, I’d try to take pictures of the clouds out the window. A few years ago I did a series of paintings of those clouds. This is the latest one. Unfortunately I ended up with a decent sized drop of Ultramarine Blue right where it didn’t belong. Blotting it up didn’t work, of course. And just painting over it was doomed to fail, though I did try. A thin layer of matte medium and then more paint did the trick, though I’m making it sound far simpler than it was.
But all’s well that end well, and next week I’ll be back at the League painting on raw canvas. That’s the really good news.
Collage to Painting
Okay, while waiting for some raw canvases to arrive from Amazon, I had done a collage version (an artistic rough draft) of my favorite view: the sunset over the Palisades and the Hudson River. Now it was time to try and convert that into a painting. Collage to painting: easier said than done.
My collage had been all about flat color and hard edges (see my previous post). I decided to try to create a watercolor version, which would be all about soft edges (or no edges) and fluid color changes. Still an experiment though, since I wanted the final painting (which I could see in my mind’s eye) to be acrylic on raw canvas. Watercolor would allow me to test and practice the shift from collage to painting.
I ended up with three attempts (it’s been a long time since I worked with watercolor) and one of them gave me the idea I was looking for:
Lord knows, it wasn’t anything I wanted to brag about, or even really acknowledge, but it was the start I needed.
So I moved to acrylic on raw canvas backed with gesso. [Technical aside: you can buy canvas pads which are gessoed only on one side. I simply opt to paint on the back, or raw canvas, side.] It’s not the same as working on stretched raw canvas, which is NOT gessoed on the back, but it IS the next best thing.
So ended up with two versons of my sunset on canvas, only one of which I will post:
Now we’re getting somewhere. Not my final destination, but closer.
Next step: wait for delivery of the stretched raw canvas and then tackle the painting. Depending on how long that takes, I may do a few more canvas pad versions. To be continued …
Experiments can be tricky…
By definition, experiments are things you don’t normally do as an artist. Lately, I’ve been producing very atmospheric paintings using acrylic on raw canvas (that’s a bit of a simplification, but okay, good enough for now). Doing anything different, experiments can be tricky … very tricky.
And now with Covid 19 causing a shortage of some of my basic supplies (like raw canvas), well, experimenting is becoming more common (but still tricky). Fortunately, I have a home studio equipped with a number of gessoed canvases in varying sizes purchased before I became enamored of working on raw canvas. Unfortunately, I really don’t know what to do with them anymore.
So I remembered a technique used by another artist at the Art Students League: big thick brushes, fluid acrylic paint and gessoed canvas, with the brush strokes clearly visible. For some reason which I still don’t understand, it seemed like a way to continue to produce atmospheric paintings, just differently. Most importantly, it seemed do-able.
Started at the League before everything shut down, my first attempt at that castle on the hill I remembered from living in Germany years ago wasn’t exactly a success. So I gessoed over it and started again. This time, in my home studio, it worked.
Of course, that was only my first gessoed canvas. I have a number more. Ever hear of “beginners luck?” Well, Almost Clear is the epitome of beginners luck.
My next attempt was so bad I’m not going to post it. My instructor at the League suggested a different technique for the next attempt. He reminded me that I’d fixed part of a painting last year by using a cloth to rub in a mixture of acrylic medium, water and paint.
While I eventually might gesso over my current disaster/experiment, I’m going to experiment first with using this “new” technique on some smaller canvases.
Having been painfully reminded that experiments can be tricky, I don’t really have a choice but to try something new. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up liking one of these experiments. Afterall, painting on raw canvas was once an experiment too.
Square is liberating
Who knew? All my artistic life I’ve painted on rectangles (paper, canvas, whatever) where one side was longer than the other. Not square, in other words. Well, for some reason I decided to try painting on a square canvas. Well, guess what? Square is liberating.
Rectangular canvases speak to me of landscapes, skyscapes, waterscapes … semi-abstract, but not completely. Somehow, a square canvas speaks to me of nothing, or rather nothing I recognize. It frees me to just put down some paint and see what happens. And then I do it again. The end result is almost completely unplanned. Liberating.
.
This is my first experiment with a square canvas … and a new color (red). I can’t exactly tell you how this painting happened. It just did. To counterbalance this, I started another square painting, this time with the red in the center and the white on the outside. We’ll see how that develops.
In the meantime I played today with alcohol inks on square canvas with an artist friend of mine. Two hours later…
Alcohol inks are hard to photograph, they’re so shiny. I’m not even sure if this is finished. I almost don’t know how to think about it. But it’s fun.
Bottom line: I’m liking these squares. Square is liberating.
Experiments are such fun
Experiments are such fun! I just spent two afternoons playing with alcohol inks, trying them out on gessoed canvas, Yupo and some kind of square tile given to me by the Art Students League in exchange for feedback on how well it worked. Well, the results are mixed but I’d forgotten how much fun experiments could be.
First, on canvas. I had trouble getting the ink to move around the way I wanted. I kept blowing on it with an angled straw, but all I got were these fingers of paint blowing randomly out from the center.
.
Next I tried the alcohol inks on Yupo, because I thought the inks would move around more smoothly. Well, they sorta did, but I still ended up with those fingers of paint. So far no cigar.
So I spritzed it with alcohol and started tilting the paper and blowing on it with the straw. Well, parts of this I love, but other parts are just interesting. Still no cigar.
And then I decided to try adding alcohol inks to those tiles from the League.
Well, I’m starting to learn how to get what I want: those lines moving upwards in the upper right corner, the blurring of the yellow in the middle right. Spritzing alcohol on after the ink is down creates those lovely little dots. But overall, this isn’t thrilling me. I couldn’t get that yellow sun in the upper left to blur out (like a wet-on-wet watercolor) to save my soul.
Okay. So let’s try again on another tile.
Finally, it’s starting to look like what I want, like wet-on-wet watercolor. To get this effect I have to spritz on a lot of alcohol, so the ink swims in it. I’m already forgetting the details: I think I put the alcohol down first and then added the ink. But I’m not sure, so I’ll certainly have to do it again. And again. And again. The hair dryer certainly came in handy.
But this is giving me some ideas for the work I’m doing at the Art Students League with acrylic on raw canvas.
Experiments are such fun!
Finally
It feels like forever, but I’ve FINALLY gotten my computer to function the way I want. 3 hours to get Adobe PhotoShop Elements installed and 4 hours with Geek Squad to get a variety of things to work … and I’m back in business.
I’m certainly not complaining about Adobe tech support or Best Buy’s Geek Squad. As a Luddite, I represent quite a challenge. And they were unfailingly polite and helpful. It’s just hard to get easy answers when you barely know what questions to ask.
Anyway, I can finally show some of my paintings from the last month:
This represents an abbreviated view of the sunsets I see from my living room window each evening (unless it’s raining).
I painted this in three separate sessions: the sky, starting with the golden-pink sun and moving up to blue/purple. Then I added the distant hills. The trees actually took about 4 hours to add (I have familial tremors and it’s hard painting almost straight lines with shaky hands). Finally I added the near hills to anchor the trees.
This took longer to paint because I didn’t have a clear idea where I was going and the painting just sorta evolved. And there were some errors that had to be corrected (paint spilled where it didn’t belong). Fixing anything with watered down acrylic on raw canvas is much easier said than done. If you know what you are doing, even watercolor is easier.
Speaking of watercolor, starting next week I will be back at the Art Students League in Frank O’Cain’s Abstract Watercolor class. It will be interesting to go back to my first love (watercolor) and see what I have (or haven’t) forgotten.
Acrylic isn’t watercolor
Acrylic paint on raw canvas behaves differently than it does on watercolor paper, even though in both cases the acrylic paint is watered down so it looks like watercolor. The advantage of acrylic paint over watercolor is that once it dries, it’s permanent … can’t be changed or lifted as it can with watercolor. The disadvantage is that once it dries, it’s permanent … mistake or not, intentional or not. Even though the finished painting can look like watercolor, acrylic isn’t watercolor.
And watered down acrylic paint on raw canvas isn’t the same as watered down acrylic paint on watercolor paper. Unlike with watercolor paper, Acrylic Flow Release must be added to the water or the paint won’t sink into the raw canvas; it just beads up on top. Getting a hard edge is much harder on raw canvas; Matte Medium must be used with tape otherwise the paint just seeps under the tape in weird ways. You can use masking fluid with raw canvas to get a hard edge, but the masking fluid can be incredibly hard to get off the raw canvas (unlike watercolor paper).
So you can see why the last few months have been a trial and error learning experience for me. Ronnie Landfield and some of the class members have been very helpful, but until you actually do it yourself, you haven’t really learned it.
In no particular order, here are some of my recent acrylic on raw canvas paintings:
Sunset 8×11 Acrylic on Raw Canvas $450
This was my very first acrylic painting on raw canvas and I simply got lucky. Everything worked the way I intended.
Not Listening Acrylic on Raw Canvas 11×8 $425
Even though some things in this painting of my view of the sunset over the Hudson River and the Palisades didn’t turn out exactly the way I intended, I like the end result. We call them “happy accidents.”
Moonscape Acrylic on Raw Canvas 17×13 $875
This is still very abstracted even though the clouds do look like clouds. I took out the bridge, blurred the Palisades and included the navigation lights and their reflection. You never know what should be included until you try it. Miraculously, the masking fluid for the tips of the clouds and the navigation lights and reflections was easy to lift up. I can’t explain it.
My Abstract Sunset Acrylic on Raw Canvas 16×12 $850
This is a larger variation on my earlier Day’s End painting. While I was busy fixing what hadn’t worked as intended in the earlier painting, the masking fluid for the Palisades Parkway and the little bridge was unbelievably hard to lift off the raw canvas in this painting. Go figure.
As I said, it’s been a learning experience.
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