Pentimento Epiphany!

Wow--so there is a series of work that has been floating around in the back of my mind for at least a year now but has never made it to the studio because I haven't found the right execution for it yet. It stems from wanting to take my drawings to another level and not being proficient enough in printmaking to make that happen yet. It also has something to do with subject matter. I've always enjoyed drawing from small natural objects and trying to abstract them somewhat in the process (bones, especially skulls, wood, etc.) So, there I was last week, home alone and channel surfing, when I came across a short documentary titled 'Pentimento' which is about an artist in New Mexico named Fran Hardy. (It's still showing now and then on PAEC, the Pacific Education Channel, as well as some PBS stations if you have a chance to catch it.) It was one of those true "AHA!" moments--her technique was exactly what I had been looking for. So here's the scoop: Fran does these amazing very tight botanical illustrations on large (4x5' or so) panels in graphite. She then layers an abstract / non-representational color field on top using oil pastels, and then scratches through to the original drawing without knowing exactly what she's going to find. This is it--it speaks of process and time and a certain spirit about the subject matter, exactly what I've been looking for.

Here are some of my first experiments with this--it's a drawing of a bevel fungus that I've applied the technique to.

Off of the Subject...

So here's a classic de-construction of an image, starting with the finished piece and working backwards through the underpaintings to the initial outline. This piece is titled "Unaweep Ranchers," it is an oil on canvas and is 36x48" in size. I laid this one out a little differently than I usually do. Since I wanted the final image to be very low-key in color, I rendered the underpainting monochromatically using only Burnt Sienna and its tints and shades. In other words, my underpaintings are usually pretty technicolor, but for this image I used a more subtle technique. Actually this is a traditional technique used by Renaissance artists, only those guys, being infinitely more patient than myself, would lay out an underpainting in Burnt Sienna mixed with a nice oil medium such as linseed oil, let it dry for a month or two, then proceed to the next level (oil based mediums tend to slow the drying process in already-slow-to-dry oil paint.) Since I have better mediums available to me, and I am the world's most impatient oil painter, this sucker took me a week to complete. The image is from a treck we took up the Unaweep Canyon last September. It was one of those beautiful Colorado days where we had had a light dusting of snow, but the fall color was still on the trees. It looked like a black and white photograph where certain areas had been hand color-tinted. This is, in fact, from the same trip where I got the source material for "Living Waters."

So this is a hiatus from the water series. I started teaching art again this semester, and by the time I could get back to the studio I had lost the thread. I will pick it up again, but I felt I needed a gear shift just to get me started again. I think I have things balanced out enough that I will be able to get some real work done in the studio (finally!) Happy early spring to you,

Dawn