Studio Time

Category: Drippy

The Salvation of Drippy

I have a cold. I had a cold yesterday. ….and on Monday. Not a horrible cold. It’s about a 6 on the Kleenex per hour scale.

Monday, I spent an hour or so working on Rocking Horse Dream then decided that I needed to do something that required, um… no physical exertion.

So, I got out Drippy. I spent a while on this Monday and Tuesday morning and got it to the point that you see it in the first image. Personally, I don’t like it at all. I thought it looked better in the monotone stage.

This is after an Indian yellow glaze made with lots of water and a bit of gloss medium. I wanted it to pool in places. I added (too much) salt to it to sort of kill the brushstrokes and add some texture to the paper. Once this was dry, I scraped off some of the salt and gave it a coat of clear medium. I like this even less than the first thing.

This is from today. I scraped off more of the salt and cleaned things up a bit, did a glaze of Phthalocyanine Blue, let that dry somewhat then scumbled across that with Titanium White… twice. I’m still not all that thrilled with it but I can see a bit of potential. I actually like what’s happening in a few places. I suppose the next step is to repaint a few of the areas. It should go a little bit easier seeing that many of the edges are already defined. It’s fairly easy to stay inside the lines when the edges are in relief. I’ll repaint them anyway.

Colors are Golden’s, Open Acrylic Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Hooker’s Green, Phthalocyanine Blue and Indian Yellow with Utrecht’s Titanium White.

September 20, 2023
Return of Drippy

Drippy spent yesterday with its third coat of medium drying. Today, it got a wash of sepia followed by another wash of Paynes grey then another of terra verte. Once it had dried, I scumbled across it with Indian yellow and followed that with some titanium whit e. Indian yellow is fairly transparent. It does work very well as a dye though. The purpose of it was basically to tint the white. Once that was all dry, I brushed a very dilute glaze of sepia across it, stuck it on an easel and let the paint run down the painting.

I use mostly Senellier colors. Their sepia has a greenish tone despite what the Wikipedia link above says about the color. I do use Utrecht’s titanium white. It’s very heavily pigmented, dense and covers very well. It’s great for mixing as well.

This is on Canson acrylic/oil paper by the way. It’s much different from the Arches product. This has a “linen” texture and is considerably less absorbent. They both have their uses. I do prefer the Arches stuff for drawing. I’m really just trying both to see which I prefer for the “thread” stuff.

I’m going for a sort of “evil garden” feel with this painting. That is where I spent a good portion of the day yesterday. Between the beetles eating my viburnums, the dogs trampling my ostrich ferns and the Central Illinois mid-afternoon sun… that sort of describes the way I feel about them at the moment. Seriously though, it’s a theme I’ve spent a lot of time with over the years. I love working with organic forms. The idea that some of them may have some sort of malevolent intent doesn’t seem like all that much of a stretch.

May 29, 2023
Drippy

This is a current experiment that attempts to combine the aesthetic of some of the string/rope/wood/etc collages I’ve done in the past with that of the automatic (scribble) drawings I use to generate nearly everything I do.

The heavier, straight lines on this are made from heavy cord. The squiggly lines are made from thread. The drips are acrylic medium that will eventually run off of the paper or dry transparent. This is the second coat. If you look closely, you can see that some of the thread is still “floating” a bit. It will probably require at least one more coat.

Drawing with thread is “different”. It’s definitely a technique that requires some practice. Hopefully, I’ll improve if this turns out to be something worth pursuing. I do have a few of these going. Practice makes “perfect”, no?

Anyway… I’ll see how this goes and post the occasional update. It is one of quite a few experiments I have going. I’m sure they’ll all appear here as well.

May 27, 2023