After almost 20 years
of watercolors I needed a break from the medium and began exploring the world
of clay printing, a unique process for creating mono types. I very quickly learned that this medium
would not allow me to create the precise, tight architectural images I did with
the watercolors. While I experimented with abstract art I continued to look
into ways to render the architectural subjects that still held my attention, At the same time, for reasons I
cannot explain I became interested in the industrial environment and began
depicting what I called “Industrial Skylines”.
They did not require
the same precise technique as my watercolors, and the clay process was well
suited for what I was trying to do, but I still needed to have more control of
the medium. Soft pastels were the
solution to my problem. After
deciding on the mood/colors and the composition I would create a clay mono
type, using Pellon interfacing for the support. Then I would refine the image, adding details and
adjusting colors, basically doing a pastel painting over the print. Depending on the image, the “pastel
content” of the final piece could vary from as low as 50% to as high as 90%. It was only a matter of time before I
began omitting the clay print to work
directly with the pastel.
Here are several early
pastel over clay mono type paintings:
 |
| Oliver's Skyline 18x36 about 50% pastel |
 |
| Re-worked skyline about 75% pastel |
 |
| Prairie Grain Elevators about 90% pastel |
No comments:
Post a Comment