Sunday 11 November 2007

recording the process (rust triptych) 8

At last I can say that I have made a proper start on the triptych. As previously mentioned I just painted the canvases with a mauve acrylic wash leaving out the yellow circles, which I painted in when the BG was dry.



Next I painted the dark purple following the guidelines I’d laid down in my sketchbook. You may notice that the right hand canvas has been turned 45% CW for a better composition.



I now had to make a cardboard support to go inside the canvas before I could iron on the painted Bondaweb, otherwise I think the canvases would have stretched under the heat and weight of the iron. To help with the heat conduction I put a last layer of woollen blanket on the support.











I really like the textured effect of the Bondaweb so I’m now in a dilemma as to what to add to the composition that will enhance and compliment the BG without obliterating it, maybe some machine embroidery on watersoluble fabric.

I finished off my interpretation of the sketches with layers of gold and pale blue oil pastel on baking paper, which was then ironed onto the canvas. This didn’t work too well when I used tissue paper because it got stuck to the canvas as you can see on the first one.

So far so good, I’m still toying with the idea of putting down layers of resin, maybe making a total covering of FME on water soluble fabric and then immersing this in the resin. The only problem with that is, it takes an age to dry and the fumes are a nightmare until it’s solid!

2 comments:

Shirley Anne Sherris said...

Hi
I know what you mean about backgrounds. I too have difficulty sometimes when I have spent time and materials on a background and really like it to then cover it over with other stuff. Some are comfortable with that and can even obliterate the bg but then I think - why bother putting all that effort into the bg if you are going to cover it up.
But - as I always say - go with the flow - follow your instincts - if it works it works. If you really want the bg to show then whatever you put over it would have to be open to let the bg show through.
You went with the blue after all!
sas

Purple Missus said...

These are looking fabulous, and I too understand the background dilemma.
Had never heard of the oil pastels technique - must try that one :)
As for resin, I would love to see what that turns out like. I machine knitted a wire bowl and dipped it in resin,it looked amazing but as ever, I then moved on to something else before I fully developed the process.