I took part in the OYR/Green Fools +15 Chinese New Year parade in honour of the Dragon. It all began when I turned the corner after parking my truck at Bankers Hall. Inside were bands, a choir, he mayor, a bunch of weirdos and a long red dragon. Luckily I was in my pirate duds, I was planning a wee mutiny. I'm glad I wore red, it seemed to be the colour of choice. During the festivities I tried as I might to coax office workers to join our merry parade.
On with the show they say....
After the parade ended, I hit the studio. The lunar New Year quickly approaches and I need to get these two pieces done in honour of the celebration. Today I applied the Gold.
What a difference this makes. I really am happy with the slightly translucent but highly reflective Golden brand Fluid Acrylic Deep Gold pigment. As suspected I used nearly the entire bottle on the backgrounds. I criss crossed brush strokes in my application.
In the right light you can see the shine this paint has. It really helps to set off the dragons and make them pop. Depending on how you look at them or how they are lit, you get a very different impression from the pieces. I ended up leaving the sides the colour of the underpainting, which shows thru when you look at it, so all those beautiful drips and colours are not completely covered.
After application of the nit ail layer of Gold, I gave each piece a light sand to allow the texture to show thru and reveal some of the coloured underpainting.
Here are the two pieces photoed on my studio wall before I left for the night. Being at this stage is going to help me further develop the works, now that I have a better idea of the figure ground relationship. I feel like I will go into the left piece and use darks on the belly and put some time into the face and claws. I also need to test various varnishes to ensure I maintain the reflectivity after the application of the protective layer.
Still more to come.....
