Original artwork description:

UNFRAMED. Half inch border all sides. Heavily textured painted on flat canvas sheet with large offset handle "frosting knives" and plaster scrapers. The photograph can't convey the visual depth and layers achieved via dozens of layers of acrylics, washes, and clear mediums.

I begin each piece by doing quick “body scribbles” with ink directly on the primed canvas or panel. A shoulder. A hip. Tilt of a head. Then expand the rest of the body from there. At this stage I have no thoughts of colors, textures, title, or meaning. Just attention on the various shapes, sizes, and positions of the figure. The ink forces me to commit. If I used pencil I know I would be tempted to erase and/or edit during the scribble process. I also use the ink at this stage to do a bit of shading and volume creation, giving the characters dimensionality.

Next are the first layers of color and texture. It’s important to me that ALL the texture is actually color. I don’t lay down a bunch of texture using just thick white mediums (thick paint goop without pigment colors) and then paint on top of that. Because I know it’s possible (actually highly probable) that I’m going to be doing some sanding, scraping, and gouging I want the color to remain throughout those destructive processes, and not just reveal a white base under the surface color.

I also mix my acrylics, inks, and pastels with transparent liquid mediums (liquid paint goop without pigment colors) and after dozens and dozens of layers, a translucent depth appears that just can’t be captured in photographs. You can actually see BEHIND some of the colors to what lies beneath…

Materials used:

acrylic, plaster, ink, pastel, cold wax on flat canvas sheet