Friday, February 27, 2015

Studio Work

Hard-Edge Painting #151, 2015 Latex and spray enamel on canvas over wood panel.

New work in the studio. Working on a series of black and white pieces all 40" x 30". Decided to focus on black and white. I was feeling that color was getting in the way and making things too busy. Going back to basics allows me the opportunity to work out other elements of the paintings. Such as the interaction between the ground, transparent, and opaque layers of paint. 

Starting with a white ground, I tape off a 1" boarder which I then roll with solid color. After that I apply a layer of white and spray paint the tag twice. Rotating the painting so that each tag occupies one half of the painting. I sand the entire area with a rotatory sander and build up the surface with transparent and opaque areas of paint. 

This part of the process is intuitive. In the past I've used photoshop to figure things out but for this work I just use a piece of white board to block out what I'm seeing so that I can decide white parts of the tag I'd like to keep. The last part is adding the 1/4 inch black boarder. So far I've made three paintings and will start another 40" x 30 and a slightly larger piece that measures 48" x 38".