Monday, November 11, 2013

Painting fail, sort of

A ways back I said I was inspired by some art I saw at CB2.  I gave it a shot at making my own.  It didn't work out that great. The end result wasn't what I was going for, but it wasn't a total failure.

First I painted the entire canvas with white primer.  Then I cut out a large piece of matting in the cut out shape of California.  Do not do use matting.  Terrible, terrible idea.


I sprayed the cut out shape with adhesive on the back and adhered it to the canvas, then painted another layer of white primer over it.  It curled up in multiple places, so I weighted it down.  This was a really bad idea. Don't do this.

I painted the entire canvas red, including the sides and over the adhered shape.  Then I took the canvas outside and used about 10 different color spraypaints, moving mostly in a circular motion.  I was pretty happy with the colors and movement in the canvas.


Then I was ready for the big climax--removing the shape to reveal the shape in relief underneath!

Except the shape was now solidly adhered to the canvas.  Practically melded as one with the canvas.  All attempts to remove said shape result in peeling layers of mat.  


The attempt to glue the shape layers back down and paint them all white so it gives the impression of a relief failed.  It looks like I glued a big cardboard shape to a canvas. Which I did, accidentally.


Totally frustrated, I put it aside for a while. I came back to it and noticed that the cardboard California was bowed outward. I cut it down the middle with a box cutter and ripped off the cardboard, leaving a shape of California in relief! Yay!

Except all the rough layered edges glued to the canvas were still there. Also, I thought it looked dumb. I took it back outside, sanded it down a bit, but the edges remained.  So I started painting again.

I ended up with this:



Its not the relief painting I was hoping for, but it is a big piece of art with colors I like.  It has a bit of a textural edge to it. I'm kind of digging it.    

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