Going Back a Little

Since writing the text for my Then We Came To The End sticky notes is taking longer than expected, I haven't had much to post, so lets go backwards a little.

Here are a couple of process shots and then the final product for the last painting I finished:




(I'm particularly embarrassed by the bad coloration and lighting of this last photo - I badly need to get a new camera/photos skills)

When I first conceived of this painting the idea was that when finished I would cut it up into a bunch of two or three inch by two or three inch squares that I would then send to galleries as "samples", along with my portfolio, so that they'd be able to see the rich surface of a painting that a photograph just can't convey (especially when there are stickers in the mix). Subsequently, the overall image or narrative of this painting was much less important to me than usual - the priority being instead that every square two inches had enough visual interest to stand on its own. Here's a detail shot.



As you can see, after five or six unsuccessful attempts, I used the choppy future of this painting as an excuse to give up on the nose entirely, covering the space instead with a butterfly sticker epicenter. Hopefully you can also see a little better how the strokes of the palate knife that I use to paint look, though the way that the stickers mix with the paint is still difficult to discern. Just imagine what a good idea of the final effect you'd have if part of this chunk had been exacto-ed out and mailed to you...

I've been feeling more recently that the whole slicing and sending plan may not have the most efficacy, which is a long winded way, I suppose, of saying that I've wussed out on the cutting.