A Whale of a Time

I realized, looking around the studio this morning after browsing through the day's installment of art on Instagram, that my current color palette feels rather garish. It's clear that the art I appreciate on Instagram is much less in-your-face, color-wise.

Which doesn't mean I now hate everything I've done this last two weeks -- I don't, except for the last two -- I suspect it just means my mood has shifted. Again. Probably because the various restrictions which have kept us protected so far are gradually being lifted, so that with each week we have more contact with outsiders and therefore more exposure to the potential of the virus. At our age, though we have no obvious infirmities, it's hard to be completely sanguine about that.

Anyway, after noticing what it was I liked, artwise, today, I decided to shift my color preferences and try something both quieter and bolder: Paynes Gray and Nickel Azo Gold for colors, but poured onto a large new canvas; something I haven't tried before and don't really have the tools for.

Fortunately there was a somewhat broken Costco box languishing on our front porch, so I used that as a combination brace/receptacle.  The first pour, the gray, was a little too watery; there was a lot of cleanup afterward. But the second pour worked well, seemed to be both about the right amount and the right consistency. Plus I was able to blot the excess paint with a paper towel, which gives it that cool texture you can see in the orange on the lower left.

It was fun, actually, to see where the paint would flow, and to figure out how to control it, but a little hard on my back. That said, I'm pleased with the result and glad it doesn't bear TOO much resemblance to the one (by artist Kasia Krecicka) that inspired it. I'm calling it A Whale of a Time, because that's what I had creating it.

So what am I learning today? It's clear that I prefer techniques that are harder to control, or (to put it another way) that allow the paint to decide for itself how it will appear on the canvas. Whether that's because I enjoy the collaboration, or just because I'm not all that confident of my own technique is a question we'll leave for now: hopefully it's not just that I want to be able to blame the paint for any failures, and not myself... But I can definitely see that I'm drifting toward what is essentially watercolor, and that's a bit of a surprise. Now I just need to figure out if I can figure out a way to get these bold and interesting shapes without having to bend over quite so much.