I continued the 40 Day Creativity Experiment this week by adding one layer per day to my humble paper bag canvas.
(You can see days 1-8 here.)
This challenge is going to be harder than I thought. How can I possibly keep adding to a single piece for this many days? I got to a point this week where I was starting to like it but then it started feeling precious, and I was afraid to mess it up. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that it's just craft paint on a grocery bag, and since I've documented every step of the way, I could easily recreate the parts I liked at a later date.
So here we go with this week's progress.
When last you saw this painting, it looked like this:
Day 9: I used some copper paint to stencil more circles, slightly off center to the gessoed circles.
The photo makes it look kind of orange. Here's a detail shot: it's a nice shimmery copper paint.
Day 10: scribbled some brown circles with oil pastel
Day 11: rubbed some brown paint over the areas of text to obscure them more.
Day 12: flung some burnt umber paint all over it.
Day 13: even though I kind of liked where this was going, I realized I would never make it to 40 days unless I added more layers. Radical layers. I rolled on some gesso with a brayer to push back some of the bright spots.
Day 14: I stamped various size circles in teal paint and then sprayed water on them to make them drip a little.
Day 15: I tore strips of a paper lunch bag and glued them down
And that's where it stands as of right now.
I really don't have any kind of plan here, but I've got 25 more days to figure something out.
Good for you for taking pictures of the process. I love seeing that but always forget to do it!
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting watching this develop. You are brave. Perhaps it may be an inch thick when it is finished - more of a sculpture than a painting.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it doesn't have to be additions - perhaps punching or cutting holes???
And then there is always your previous idea some time ago of driving the car over it. That worked!
Oh how I wish I had your energy. You inspire me. So many artists should be so brave and spontaneous. Love the daily pics.
ReplyDeleteGreat creative play....it will come to you what to do next. xox
ReplyDeleteI'm finally catching up on all your artsy goodness - this project seems like such a great way to focus on adding depth and layers - some of the work I admire most has what looks like a bazillion layers and I wondered how they make the depth....this is how I guess. It'll be interesting to see if when it's done you can really only see the top 4-5 layers? Thanks for sharing...I might try my own attempt after the holidays.
ReplyDeleteKaren!! karen karen karen!
ReplyDeleteKaren...?
I read this article one time (maybe twice) somewhere (not imaginary) wherein (not outside) an artist decided to work on a mural every day for a year. Yes! Karen? I'm talking 365 days. Every day, she had to add something to it. It was, I'd guess (didn't measure) about 5x6 feet.
Rather than to work on the full mural each day, she added something to one section, or to a corner, or tacked something to an edge, or even removed something that she didn't like, every day for a year. And at the end of the year, she was going to surface it or unify it somehow. Like, with a border, or recurring piping, or with letters written all over the surface, or whatever. But at the end, she realized she liked it just the way it was, all patchworky, mis-matched, wonky, vibrant, and alive.
(frankly, I would never have been able to sit in the same room with it, but a lot of people loved it)
Anyway: I don't know what my point is, exactly, except that, maybe you could work on one bit of it one day and another bit the next day. Not the whole thing every day. You'd have a few hours to live with what you did the day before, and decide whether to continue it or cover that part with wite-out (registered trademark).
I think it looks really awesome right now. Even if you did the same thing over and over again, it would be neat-o.
xo
Chris
p.s. You're not going to block my comments, are you?
It's happened to me before, sister.