Sunshine to the rescue

It’s been cold and snowy, wet, dreary–way too long here in Michigan. I’ve had drawings completed and canvases stretched for the next three Sky Pads paintings prepared and waiting for weeks now because I need warm sunshine to get the base coat of poured paint onto canvas.

The devil is–always–in the details. In this case, it’s pretty simple. I pour a very thin diluted coat of oil paint as a base coat onto the stretched canvas. Sometimes I use a couple of colors, other times more. The important part to me is that the colors mix as they are poured and then divide into patterns as they roll off. Since I use a variety of toxic stinky media to thin the paint it’s a necessity to do it outdoors. Which particular medium I use and how long it takes to dry can also affect the character of the “wash” on the canvas. Here’s an example of one from quite a while back, done on a really hot day:

Sky Pads 26, poured paint background

You can see all the striations as the paint pigments separated out of the medium. The faster it dries, they more they separate. Hot days are the trick.

I knew this time around that I wanted something a bit more subtle for Sky Pads 32, so as long as I could snag a day warm enough to at least be comfortable outside, I could pour the paint and not worry too much about how fast it dried. I also decided to use a medium I swore I would never use again because it was so slow drying that it never really did dry. I had to put fixative on it to keep it from getting mushed up with the next coats of paint over it. We’ll see later if I regret that decision this time around. In the meantime, here’s what I got after I poured my lovely blue streaked with white yesterday:

Preliminary paint pour for Sky Pads 32

I knew from past experience that considering the weather I probably would only be able to get this nice texture from that less-than-ideal medium. I really like it–nice and subtle.

So, since this is a pretty boring picture up till now, I’m going to do something I rarely do, which is give you a peek at what the actual subject will look like. Here’s the drawing that I will be projecting onto the canvas–if the medium ever gets stable enough to let me do it.

Small ink drawing for Sky Pads 32