Five Little Canvases
22 Apr 22 by justatest
Thinking about scaling down, maybe hoping for a little more intimacy, or focus. I´m preparing five unusually small (for me) canvases of slightly differing sizes (to prevent them making up a diptych, triptych, or quintych even) and am cautiously curious to discover where they´ll lead.

Making a start on the third canvas

Putting the other two aside for the moment, I decide to move on with a new canvas. The approach I usually have to beginning a new image is once a mark is made, the problem begins which in turn initiates the long journey towards it´s resolution. Looking at the preceding paintings I chose green to begin with (as they are mostly red) and added a sweeping curvaceous line diagonally along the blank surface. Something different from the others which appear static and bound within their perimeters. Then I added a point of reference left of centre to send it all off-balance. And so let´s see how it proceeds from here.

Canvas no 1 taken up again

And so I´d begun this, then put it away irritated (so much so that I didn´t take a photo) with the mess I´d made, and to allow it to dry.
The second one´s off the easel now to dry a bit, and so back again to this first canvas.
You can clearly make out that it´s upside down. That´s a joke by the way. As I work on these small canvases, I turn them around 90° or 180° whenever I arrive at a block in an attempt to find a ´way´ of progressing. It doesn´t often succeed and in the end is probably just an act of desperation on my part.
Thinking also how with the sculptural stuff I will spend large amounts of time attempting to physically put them together often hiding behind the process, so not really continuously concentrating on the aesthetic aspect. Whereas when faced with a simple flat surface and colours as in this case, it becomes much more of a standoff to see whether I can really actually paint. Each canvas asks if I have the wherewithal to come up with a meaningful image. They comment witheringly along the way; What is that mess you´re making? What on earth are all those diseased-looking clumps of oil (colour) you´re so partial to?

canvas 2 update

Initial explorations

Initial explorations
The second one kicks off.

First on the easel

First on the easel
First blank canvas

Five Little Canvases

Five Little Canvases
in preparation

Bought some new light canvas material. Sawed up wood and made stretchers. Stretched the canvases, primed them with a couple of coats of hot glue, then four of five coats of hot gesso (made as I learnt one hundred years ago at art school with calcium carbonate, zinc oxide, boiled linseed oil, and rabbit-skin glue), allowing each coat to dry and be sanded. In all takes a few weeks (mostly waiting for surfaces to dry) but then the finished blank canvas is such a pleasure to work with.