SO much better

  I had a lovely text chat with the woman who posed for the image that will go on this canvas last night. We talked about how easy it is to get lost in duty and responsibilities and lose ourselves in the process. So, even though I'm swamped with all that, I snuck down to my studio to finally get this canvas right.

     

 My students never want to do anything more than once, but it is the secret to success. Besides being too loose, the canvas I used was pretty thin. This canvas is much thicker, and I broke out the stretching tool to make sure I was getting a tight fit. 

 

    It took some time, and some hand strength, but now I'm happy with it. It is pretty tight, and it reminded me of the ol' bouncing quarter trick. This is actually a Canadian dollar (I splurged), which I promptly lost on the floor. Think it counts?

   Next up: Gesso and the underpainting. I'm thinking of leaning toward the purples in this one.

Mourning the trees and painting leaves

 

   I live by a small section of pines, and those woods have been a friend to me for many years. This month, the owners of the land, a 'farm', they call it, came in and cut 90% of the trees. I could see those trees from both my studio and my marimba. I know that they will re-plant and in a few years they might even be as tall as me. But I really wish I hadn't read an article about how trees have heartbeats that move their sap around:( I miss my friends.

   Anyway, now that they are gone, this background is a lot closer to what it really looks like now. Except the real thing isn't so thick. The upside is, it is helping me work the background in this painting. Posting it here helps, too. The last time I did, it helped me see that the front trees needed texture, and so did the middle ground. This is how it has changed since then. The right side is overexposed because guess what? Light is flooding in from my dear, empty woods.

See what I mean?

Litho news

   Well, I tried flying by the seat of my pants today and did not get off the ground. The ink I am using should be a mix of an extremely stiff kind of litho ink called Senefelder's, which is named after the guy who invented the process, and roll up ink, which is very viscous. At the moment, I don't have any Senefelders, and I tried to compensate by substituting Charbonnel ink and changing the ratio of the two. The ink has to be very stiff in the end, but I ended up with what amounts to ink soup. So, I just blew $50 on a can of ink, and I'm hoping the 2-3 day shipping doesn't cost another 15.
    I did get my asphaltum replacement mixed up, though, and my stone is etched. As soon as I get the Senefelder's I'll be ready to see if it worked.

A False Start and a Middle Ground

Well, this is what happens when you leave a fresh canvas under a leaky skylight:

     I don't know if you can see it, but there are a couple of water stains and plaster bits from the skylight. It's not a complete disaster, because I had decided to re-stretch it anyway. These stretcher frames are much thinner the ones I usually use, but since they were in my closet, they got the job. I don't know if their depth had anything to do with it, but the canvas didn't get tight enough during stretching, and no amount of coaxing with a spray bottle and a space heater worked. It got tighter, but wiggles a bit too much. The plaster and stains were just the final push I needed to say, oh well. Try again. 

In the meantime, this one is back on my easel:

    I decided to add some underbrush to the middle ground area. I added some washes back there, and now I'm trying to figure out how much texture to use. This whole painting has been a balancing act of value. It's not there yet, but that middle ground is really helping to reconcile the dark foreground with the light background. 

   Who knew that the background would be almost as much work as the foreground? And now that I see it here, there is a lot of work to do. It's funny, because I always think I'm doing the easiest thing, and one thing leads to another until I have a full plate to reconcile. This one has been a bit of a pill. They all have been, lately. If I could figure out how to speed up my process, I would certainly do it.

     When I first started this one, I was thinking about the hijab that my Muslim friends wear. They seem to feel protected by it, in a way. (I could be completely wrong about that.) But I was also thinking about the invisibility it can offer. And that the act of unveiling, even for Western women, is an act of autonomy and independence. I like not knowing which she is doing: veiling or unveiling. 

IF: Brain

    I hauled this one out recently to show my student who is doing litho with me, because he had never seen a real litho before. Today, the new prompt for Illustration Friday is 'brain', and so what a happy coincidence that this one sort of fits! 

    When I made this one, I was thinking about how much the time I spend working on a computer plus the social media influences that bombard us every day make me  feel like my thought processes are ordered by an outside mechanical process. Good thing there are things like art and music to give me a break from all of that. I'm hoping that in the long run, those things are the secret to helping me stay human.