Trans/trany, Stage 4

Finally, all the layers are piled up on top of one another except the central square. I photographed stage 2 and 3 and made a central square from both using more images and text.

To finish the work I will tear those 2 photos in different directions, one across and the other up and down, and then laminate the torn pieces into the mixed media distressed painting. I will varnish and add a bit of actual glitter at the very last moment, date and sign the work, and “Trans/ trany” will be complete. I will add a post of the finished "Trans/Trany" painting.

Trans – Stage 3

The photo is out of focus, so I will have to reshoot it. To most it wouldn't matter since the image is not of the finished artwork. Never the less, as an obsessive compulsive artist, reshooting is an absolute necessity in order to have a decent record of the creative process.

I am also in a quandary. I like the painting at this stage. The distressed paint, dechirage (torn paper) digital photos of the painting with historical additions are working well together. However, I’m not sure whether to cover all this with another layer of wax and paint, distress, and varnish again. It would be nice to be able to do the center square that will contain definitions of trans woman, trans man, trany and pronounce the artwork finished. I can't decidde, so I suppose I’ll just have to sleep on it.

“TRANS," Stage 2 complete

It won’t look at all like this after the next six layers because these layers will be partially hidden beneath six more layers. However, I’m now about a third finished with the painting.

I like doing the mixed media distressed paintings because the technique makes history appear both hidden and seen or at least intuited. It suggests a motion, in the case of the LGBTQ Pictionary, I’m suggesting that the motion to this point in time has been positive, though within that there have been contrary moments (See the graph below).

With the advent of the White Supremacist Trump era, this may no longer be true, though I hope people of good conscience are able to fight the trend to denigrate all minority groups other than white heterosexual male.

As such, this painting, and all of the LGBTQ Pictionary can be viewed as my act of affirmation and hope, tempered with a bit of fear and determination that a reversal must not be!

First Stage, "Trans"

Finally, It's so good to be back on my Art Blog. I’ve been working on a new painting for the LGBTQ Pictionary series, “Trans (12" x 12").” I've found over the past 5 years that these paintings work best in small sizes. Trans has but the first four layers so far, but I’ve done all my research and have all the type and historical stuff to bury in the layers of paint. Next I will begin printing images and text, hand writing out text, then laminating them into the mixed media distressed painting including some gold leaf and glitter - got to have a hint of glitter and glitz - in several layers. There’s not much to the painting just now, but I’ve thought that I could also do much larger pieces, say a triptych of three or four foot square canvases similar to this, with variations in color, or a third & forth color working through them from one piece to another. There would be no images, perhaps just a bit of hidden text. They’d make a stunning over-sized-sofa (Hah-hah!) painting.