Paintings

I’ve spent a large portion of the fall creating some new-to-me experimental paintings. The paint is latex and the method is paint knife and squeegee. I started out making abstract shapes and working with compositions like imaginary maps or landscapes, then started scratching off and adding layers of mixed paints in these purposeful/random patterns, and using the squeegee to push paint around. This technique yields a wide variety of results based on the thickness and wetness of the paint, and the variety of color that is wet on the canvas at a given time.

For example, the photo below is of a canvas that is about 1/2 way through its process. The base layers have been built up to create a distressed contrasting color field. The most recent layer has added some harmonious color balance to the mix (turquoise and orange), while showing the white highlights and the darker purples and greens from previous players.

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Eventually I come to a point where I like the color composition and texture enough to call it “done” and add a white mask around the painting to create a colored circle. The controlled chaos of the striping and broken banding reminds me of astronomy photos. I’m calling these paintings “Planets” for lack of better terms. The square canvases each have one centered planet, while the rectangular canvases (so far) have pairs of overlapping or twin planets. I’m not really sure what it all means.

Here’s a close-up shot of how some of the paint mixed on a layer of one of the canvases. I ended up painting over this colorful mix with several other layers.

here are some other progress images: