medium explorations

As I begin the preparation for my residency at CAN (see my post of June 4), I find myself working on least two levels: Conceptually, I mull over my "roots and tempests" idea and probe it for both integrity and depth, while on a more practical level I contemplate getting myself and all my art supplies from here to there. The Centre d'Art i Natura is in the tiny town of Farrera, in the Pyrenees mountains close to the French border. The final stage of travel, after various flights and a two-week car trip with Jerome around northern Spain, will be a five-hour bus ride from Barcelona. In terms of what to take, lightweight and compact would be two good qualities.

Following Phyllis's example when she flew out to Utah, I easily decided to use paper rather than board as a support. Following my colleague Rebecca Crowell's suggestion, based on her numerous residencies in Spain and Ireland, I've also decided to use watermedia (fluid acrylics and watercolors) rather than oil and cold wax. There are acrylic products now that can simulate the oil-and-cold-wax process, allowing for layering and texturing. Water-based media are lighter in weight than oils, and they avoid the airlines' prohibitions against carrying flammable materials on board.

So I have pulled out my old acrylic and watercolor paints as well as my drawing supplies, and have retrieved from my flat files a variety of papers that I have accumulated over the years. I am reacquainting myself with the paints and their properties, and pushing them beyond where I took them back when I was just beginning. At the same time, I am testing the various papers, from 140# cold press watercolor paper, to the same paper in a heavier 300# weight, to a supposed "multimedia" paper, to an innovative "multimedia artboard" that is as thin as paper but has been impregnated with resin and is stiff.

I have always enjoyed water-based painting, although it is oil paint that resounds most strongly with me. To undertake to express myself in fluid acrylics and watercolor is an exciting and intriguing challenge at this stage in my work. As I remember how to manipulate the paints, and explore the various gels, pastes, and mediums with which I'm not familiar, my compositions remain based on my Colorado Plateau concept about which I've written here in the past. The concept, and the cold wax process, guide my experimentation. If I can be satisfied with the use of the new (to me) materials to express a concept with which I am so intimate, I will be ready to use them to explore the "raices y tempestades" concept that I have proposed for CAN.

So far, I haven't played with all the different papers, so I haven't decided what I prefer. None that I have tried (the 140# and the multimedia papers) stand up to the type of layering and texturing that I hope to do. Fortunately, I have about two more months before I need to purchase what I am actually going to take. A summer project!

The image above shows the final version of Soundings (30"x24") that I didn't quite finish in Helper last month. Along with Passages, it will go to the gallery next week for our 4th of July open house on the 6th.