The Hanged Man

The White Lodge Gallery held their annual Black x-mas show. This instalment Horror #4 show was this past week-end.  I created something to auction off, here are the steps.

Jim dropped off this slab of MDF to me to create an art work for the exhibition.

I gave it a good coating of black gesso to create a ground for painting.

I painted this reclining skeleton and attached his legs to a tree trunk. I rubbed in a bit of black on the bones to help create a little bit of texture.

I then painted in the background with copper paint. Ooooh shiny!

I then poured ammonia to patina the copper surface.

I then clear coated the piece to protect the surface and added in a bit of interference pigment to give it a bit more sparkle. After it dried I sanded the surface a bit.

I went in with black line and some white to put in some tarot card inspiration.

I went in with more black to help pop out the skeleton and gave it a textured clear coat on the surface.

And here it is hung for display at the gallery. I liked how it looks up side down. :D

The real HORROR....

I lost everything. Every file, everything thats good and holy in the digital realm ;( When I went to get the superdrive replaced in my newest laptop I didn't think it would come to this....

I had my expense repair returned on Friday. Saturday was lines up at the Apple store with people who badly wanted their iPhone 5's. Alas, I don't think Steve jobs is the devil, but his empire seems oddly hypocritical, a "cooler. more sophisticated, hipster" version of 1984. My computer would not boot up, so though repaired, I had to go back to the Genius bar to get my system to start. In order to do this, they had to wipe everything and re-install the OS. This all happened suddenly that I didn't back up my most recent and most important work. SH*T!!!

To make a the story short.....
Lost all my iPhone contacts, tons of images, documents, invoices, reference photos so on and so forth, oh and all my software. Damn. My brain is on a self inflicted soup of PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) SO for me, this is an opportunity for a new start. I have a new uncluttered computer and life, ready to start fresh, like spring ;)

Rather than mourn the loss, I got wet in the studio.

I sprayed my surfaces and allowed a variety of pigments to stain my supports.

The wet surface is highly reflective and really brings up the pigments.

After it dried I gave it a vigorous scrubbing with 80 grit sandpaper.

I think it takes not only blindness. bravery, balls and confidence and commitment.

I revisited the pieces with some black, iridescent silver and the original dark blue.

Outlined in black gesso, enhanced with the deep red in the shadow areas and outlined in black gesso loosely and allows to drip.

Highlights, shadow and drips of raw umber add more layering this studio session.

I did a raw umber drip over the entire surface. This piece gets some gold added to the highlights and a bronze is added to the eyebrows.

More to come.......

Horror faces

I am creating two 8"X8" pieces to hang on the wall of the House Gallery Horror 3 show.

The Gallery provided two pre-cut MDF boards to work on. They were not primed, so I primed one in black Gesso and the other in traditional white gesso. I drew out a basic design and rubbed the back in charcoal. I placed the image and traced over top my initial drawing to transfer it to the surface below.

Then I worked over top the charcoal with black or white gesso respectively, to lay down the line work.

I decided to block in the horror faces with silver and gold opalescent paint to give it a slight shimmering quality.

I then went in with  a dark blue onto the skull.

I used a dark red on the face on the white ground.

I followed it up with a lighter blue and red paint on each.

There is still another session in the studio to be had, to go further develop these pieces and to bring them to fruition for the show.

Come to the Horror show to see the finished pieces, to keep in touch like the gallery page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/houseglry