Saturday, October 25, 2008

. . . colored inside lines




This painting is loosely based on a picture of a wall of an old building, about 40 x 40". It's very orderly, isn't it? Almost boring, especially after those others that I have shown lately, with the crunchy textures and different colors. I think I wanted to paint something that was a sure thing. . . no risk of having to pitch the canvas when I was done with it. . . no reason to tear it up into strips and make a woven piece. This one is pretty safe, I think; no stress. I've noticed that I have been using blue a lot lately, all different shades, from navy to bright purplish to greenish blue. It's fun to see what shade I can come up with using difference washes. The left side of the painting is a combination of pyrole orange and quinacadrone burnt orange, poured directly onto the canvas and mixed as it was applied. I love the resulting mix of the two paints. The dark brown strip was created using some kind of "antiquing" acrylic from the hardware store I found in the faux finishing department. I thought I would try it out. The background is pretty textured. . . I used the joint compound, but at the advice of the painting guy at the hardware store, I mixed the joint compound with gesso and some white glue. He told me that joint compound was made to go on rigid supports, so I needed to add something to it to make it stick to the canvas better. It works very well, dries a lot quicker than Venetian plaster, and doesn't flake off. It's a lot less expensive than Venetian plaster, too, even with the additives.

2 comments:

Jan Heigh said...

Hi Mary;

I've worked with joint compound on board before and enjoy it. I like the idea of mixing it with gesso and white glue for canvas and will try that next. I'm working on three 30X30 pieces on canvas right now.

I'm also in a closet cleaning mood--is it something in the air?
With best wishes,
Jan Heigh
http://janheigh.blogspot.com/

Mary Buek said...

Hi, Jan: I'll be interested to see how your joint compound works out. I have been slowly slowly working my way through the closet purge and right now it's a huge mess. I never get in the mood for spring cleaning, it's always in the fall. I'm off to visit your blog.