Evolution of a series of paintings
Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. You can comment here or there.
There’s good ways and bad ways to start the day, and tuesday morning featured one of the good ones; an email that says “Hey, I’d like to give you some money! You just need to do something for me…” While that might not be so good if the sender is a Nigerian Prince or a poor beleaguered bureaucrat or a hapless soldier, this was the real kind of payment with real money for real work. I’ve been working on a couple series of small abstract acrylic works, and uploading them a couple at a time to my etsy shop. I’ve made a handful of sales, but today’s was the record setter so far; 30 small, trading card sized pieces done to order. I have no problems matching my work to a person’s couch or their drapes; I consider it a challenge.
I thought I had a stack of the 2.5×3.5 inch cards ready to go, but that wasn’t the case; I have a big stack of 4×6 cards, but cutting those down would be time consuming, and something of a waste. So, off to the supply shop on the way in to work to pick up a sheet of watercolour paper; I’ve been using Fabriano 140 lb and it holds up pretty well, and is so much easier to tear up by hand than 300 lb or anything else I’ve seen in Deserres limited selection. I tore the sheet up into 3.5″ strips, and then tore the strips down at 2.5″ intervals. I could cut them, but the slight fuzzy edge appeals to me. I prefer organic to strict, rigid line, after all. Just under half of these cards are going to be used in this commission, so I set the others aside.
First real step that I wouldn’t consider pure preparation; that is more than just cutting bait is the first set of lines put down on the cards. I’m aiming for relatively balanced little compositions without a whole lot of repetition between pieces, and aim to have 4 enclosed areas created by the lines. These enclosed areas will become the real substance of the cards; they’re the body, and the spaces that will hold the colour. I think I only have one or two pieces that just needed an extra space; that always seems to happen when I do a series. Next, I’m going to go over the lines with india ink and a nice pen nib. This really helps thicken the lines, and give them a lasting solidity that the pencil lacks. Sure, I use a 4B for these lines, but the gray tone of a graphite line… it’s just not the same. I think I’ll do the ink before bed tonight… shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes or so.