There has been yet another prolonged silence with a
wonderful overseas trip and then much family stuff conspiring to limit my art
output. There is always some progress, but much of it has been finishing off
drawings and prints and so, I thought, not of great interest.
However, I recently embarked on a series of paintings,
inspired by photos of snow gums that I took at Mt Erica (see examples below).
Four of the six paintings incorporate 2 grades of string plus some finer
embroidery cotton, to create depth. So, yet again, Step 1 of the process has
involved much stickiness as I apply the thread prior to painting.
I use Impasto Gel as my glue. It is great, just very sticky.
I use a paintbrush to attach the string to the canvas and scissors to cut it to
the correct size but I do have to use my fingers to move the more fiddly joins
etc into position, from time to time too. A white rubbery substance builds up
along the paintbrush, scissors, surrounding bench top and me as the glue dries,
and we all stick to each other. I do keep a wet cloth to hand but even so, I
sometimes find myself out in public, surreptitiously trying to scrape bits I
have missed in my clean-up, from my fingers, hands and even face, after a
session in the studio.
Below is one of the canvases with the thread part completed. Very abstract looking, I know.
