Mixed Media Distressed Painting In Process

This year’s Christmas card - yes, it is the end of March 2016. So, why am I working on a Christmas card now? Because I’m doing a mixed media distressed painting that involves perhaps as many as 50 or 60 layers before it is finished, and I can sandwich these layered steps between working on other art works including other mixed media distressed paintings. The process involves two different kinds of paint, glue, polyurethane, digital photography, Adobe Photoshop, oil crayon, and collage and dechirage, all mixed up together in a concoction that is sort of like a complicated soup. It is a process that I enjoy doing tremendously.*

At this stage I have 10 layers in the painting, and I like the dominant color, and the images that peak through the distressed layers of paint. However, it looks nothing like the final painting because this stage will be hidden beneath 40 to 50 more layers. That is part of what makes the process so much fun. Images appear, disappear and reappear entirely or in bits and pieces creating a sense of mystery and history, at least for me, the artist. I am depending on the acuity of viewers to pick up on that sense of mystery and/or history, and I know that may not always happen.

Never the less, the process is what makes mixed media distressed painting so enjoyable. I will continue to post photos of the painting at various stages of development up to the final image for the card, which will be posted as a Christmas greeting at the end of the year.

Notes

*Déchirage -I include here a link to Wikipedia entry on decollage which includes a definition of déchirage.

Harrison Ford for Characters Pub

It’s over a month since I’ve added a post to my Art Blog!!!

Finally I have an image of Harrison ford (manqué) ready to enlarge for a 3 by 4 foot painting, the last in the series for our Goddaughter’s restaurant in Lancaster, PA.* However, this is one of two images. The other is of Will Smith. Our Goddaughter will decide which she wants for her restaurant.

I will send the two images among others I have worked on. But I’m happiest with this Harrison Ford image because I think it is a departure from what I’ve been doing with the images for Windows on Queen, the banquet facility at Characters.

This will be the last of the over-sized portraits for Characters.

* manqué - Artist's model. Sculptors have used the term traditionally when making a small model before creating a larger work. I've appropriated the word for my small sketches and Photoshop experiments made in preparation for larger 2-dimensional paintings.