October Art

I’ve been in this art mood for awhile now, and want to do a large canvas, want to try something...big...and loose...and sort of free.

So I invested in two larger canvases and have been staring at them for days. I might be better going back to oils, as acrylics dry so fast. A plus in many ways, but a negative when trying to blend colors on the canvas.

I am an abstract painter, more into mixed media. This means I use paint, acrylics again, with paper, stencils, photos and whatever strikes the mood. Not a lot of drawing, and nothing realistic. I tend to textures and a variety of paper. This works perfect for the medium size canvases I use, but I wanted to try something different.

You’d think, being an abstract artist that my work would be free, in the moment, and in a way it is. What I wanted to do was some large, swing that paintbrush, slap on the paint, wild kind of thing. But I think it’s just not me.

I tried the recipe for homemade Gesso, and applied it to the larger of the new canvases, but that’s was as far as I’d progressed...until last night.

I find the gesso gives the canvas a rough feel, not really textured, but enough of a coating that it grabbed the paint, and I had very little slip and slide. I usually start by covering most of the canvas in paper, and when using matte medium, the paint moves around differently. So far, I’m not impressed, with me, not the gesso.

Thought I’d share my efforts for the last month, until I get to the really big one.