I’ve been remiss in posting regularly. Will get back on track with this post–my entry in the big ISEA Show. This year it will be in Lowell Michigan, so I’ll be able to hand deliver my framed painting.
This started life out as a dirty acrylic pour–on a 20×30″ piece of Foamcore board. The one thing I’ve learned from it was NEVER use Foamcore board for any watermedia. It warps and buckles the whole thickness of the board, and that’s what happened with this. In the process of warping, of course all the cells ran to the center of the board. I later tried to peel the painted part off of the foam and it tore, irregularly, especially in areas where the paint had soaked through the upper paper layer.
Well, when you get lemons, make lemonade. After much deliberation I took the pieces that had torn off and placed them back on the foam backing with some of the areas that I hadn’t been able to get off. After these were all glued down and emphasis lines and filled in areas done, I painted the black areas with black gesso, so that it was all uniform, and then sealed it with a UV satin coating.
I’ve been working on this for several weeks. It’s an old start that I couldn’t seem to get right. And it’s just in time for Halloween. I think it wants to be called “Lost Aliens of Quark.” It’s 18×24″ of mixed watermedia on a Rives print paper.
All, completed this past winter and spring. I’ve been working with watersoluble embroidery stabilizer and the possibilities of using it on old failed paintings. All three of these have been done previously on stretched quarter sheet 140lb Arches paper. All are done with water soluble media as well as art markers and the embroidery stabilizer.
This is called “Cracks” AND I think it has two layers of failed paintings underneath.
This is “Alien House.”
And this is “Acentric Heraldry” and has a couple of layers underneath as well as some thick collage which adds to the texture of this top layer. The small centers of the black spots are pieces of gold colored ribbon.
I still have about five or six more that are not quite finished, but will be soon, and I’ll present those next.
This painting was originally starged in November 2009, and has lain in my unfinished pile since. Decided it would be a good one to demonatrate the capabilities of using Embroidery Stabilizer, instead of just covering it with a heavy coat of Gesso. To see the process that started the path to the final painting see my post of October 26. (http://merleplaggeart.com/dir/?p=1000)
Just below is an enlarged area of the lower right of the painting. It shows annotation of what the various visual textures are a result of.
Thanks much for looking and checking this out. It really is a neat way for redoing an old painting that has not been one of your favorites. Any comments are gratefully appreciated.
I’ve been looking at this for a couple weeks and can’t decide anything to add, so I’ll call it finished. I won’t varnish it just yet–keeping it out of sight for a while will give me fresh eyes to see it again in a couple months and then prepare it for selling.
For an earlier version of this piece see my post of October 14, 2017. Any comments? Thanks for visiting.
Finished a smaller piece yesterday. Again, this one has had not quite nine lives. But, each layer I’ve added adds to the whole. This one has had water soluble embroidery stabilizer applied over a couple of failed layers. I really will take some pictures of that process and explain it in a future post. Just don’t have the proper documentation right now.
Here’s the piece–I’m calling it “Pollination.” Some of the previous layers show through–only if you know what those previous layers were.