33 cued up, with a postscript on 32

I went ahead and posted an “inaccurate color” photo of Sky Pads 32 yesterday because I was in a hurry to finally get it out there. I loved the fake gold-orange tones (created by bad lighting) floating down from the top left side but that wasn’t the reality. The reality was that the white areas looked stone cold, and not nearly as soothing or inviting. I soon decided that gold-orange had to be the reality if I could find a way to make it happen. It had to be transparent paint, but I couldn’t just paint it (the underlayers would be disturbed–no varnish yet) nor could I pour a color layer over it (too little control). However, I did have a very fine-mist spray bottle handy so I decided to take a chance on a water-consistency mix of oil paint and turpentine.

The first pass laid down such a pale layer it appeared almost invisible. However, there was enough there to notice that the spray had gone down without any unwanted splotches or bubbles. I was puzzled at first because I expected to see spray dots. Then I realized that way back last March (!) when I poured the original background I had decided to use both white and blue paint so I could have better control over where each one landed than using only blue on the blank white canvas would provide. It turned out that the white paint, which was my main interest in transforming to gold-orange, was absorbing the spray and flattening it out nicely. The process, however, would require several more layers of spray, letting each one dry in between layers so that the existing background would not get runny and spoil everything. I’m happy to say that IT WORKED! I’m not posting a new photo because the present painting now looks just like the original photo. The things artists will go through to get what they want…

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So here’s what you’ve been waiting for. As promised yesterday, here’s the background paint pour for Sky Pads 33. I have also drawn in the pattern for the lily pads over the background. Parts of it are barely visible in the photo, and barely visible in real life too. But it’s visible enough to work with. And that’s what counts.