Thursday, April 21, 2011

Ursula O'Farrell workshop, day 1: Paper

14x17", acrylic on paper

Ursula applies remarkable intelligence to her work process. She seems to have examined what slows us down, and figured out what needs to be done about it. I mention that in this context because she believes that it's good to have some stretched paper ready for doing studies. This piece is on a sheet of 14x17" paper that I'd base coated, and it was ready -- along with my paints -- when I wanted to get going.

Yes, it takes prep time. But, seriously, don't we all have down time that we've set aside for art, but we're not ready to paint? So we have a bit of bandwidth to devote to tasks. Well, maybe not always, but we do need to do that sometimes.

With this piece, again, I was painting loosely, using a palette knife, and using pencils, and getting honest, reactive effects I didn't know I could get. As in my last post, the surface was base coated. Also, as in my last piece, I used the background color to carve out the contours of the shape. I found that to be astonishingly effective.

I'm trying to bring this looseness home. It's difficult.

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