I wanted to continue to paint after managing to start exploring Paint in the previous year and attending the relevant Workshops but I had no idea what to paint. I hadn't explored a direction that would sit alongside my current practice about non-verbal language and the disruption to communication. Rather than just use this an excuse as to not do any painting I thought I would just paint anything that came to my attention and I felt it would work as a painting. This image is one from a friends phone that was taken by accident. In it's own right it worked as an image but I thought that it would develop if I was to paint it and not just get lost as a digital mistake.
This is a detail of the current image. Below are a selection of images I took as I was developing the underpainting in acrylic. This is after I had taken the image and gridded it up on a piece of prepared board. Gridding is something I am not totally sure about. Sometimes I feel it is a cheating method to create an image, other times I feel it is just a technique to get the basic layout on the canvas or board.
I know what the picture is, I also know who is in it but I'm not sure they would or would even recognise themselves, which I quite like and although it has no direct relation to my practice it does fit within the broader theme of blurring the edges and distancing the reader from the creator to allow them to make their own judgement and interpretation.
This shows the painting after a couple of sessions painting in the oil, slowly building up the coverage but without any details really added.
I have struggled with the process of this image as capturing the movement and the blurred edges in oil, a media I am still trying to come to terms with, and it has meant I have had to do it in stages to allow for the oil to dry to then try another technique to create the effect I want. I have also experimented with several brushes and even sponge brushes to drag colour through from one to another, although this does work one way but then by taking it back it can lose the effect and undo the previous marks. By stepping back it does allow me to identify areas that need further investigation.
Some of the details are really interesting me. Hopefully if I can make more progress to these areas the whole image will start to please me too, at the moment it is a love/hate relationship but not one I intend to give up on.
I do tend to work across the whole piece and build the piece up in layers, by doing this I focus on one area and this can become quite abstract but does help me concentrate and not worry about the whole image, by doing this it means when I do step back I can be quite surprised by the progress made.
It is still a 'work in progress' but I feel there is progress and I am keen to continue to develop it, even if only to learn more about the medium and how to depict this type of image.
