In Air – Further Experiments

Sometimes ideas come thick and fast.  Sometimes art is slogging it out in trial and error.
It’s all a bit ‘sloggy’ at present.

I now have a brush which is 100mm wide.  I couldn’t believe how much difference it makes to the type of stroke it produces.  Instead of looking a bit contrived, as I felt they were in my investigation with the contact, they look like normal and free flowing gestures.  A marvellous development.

This is actually on a house painting drop sheet.   I need to research other materials.  This is quite a floppy material.  I’d like to push the material further and see what can be done.

Returning to the studio after a few weeks off was nice.  I had the whole studio to myself and cleared away some earlier work, before hanging up the plastic sheet that I painting at home.  I just needed it to be in my line of sight to see where it could go.

Putting whatever I’m working on in my line of sight helps so much to keep the mind ticking over on what comes next.  This sheet could go in a bunch of different directions.  I like how it is transparent and layering is a possibility.  As is projection and lighting.

What I started doing today was thinking about creating an installation based upon my Collage Paintings, particularly those with the gestural brushstrokes.  Oh to defy gravity in painting!  Sadly, it can’t be done – except through illusion, so illusion it shall be!  I am rigging up some fishing line to form the structure/support to ‘draw’ upon with wool.  With which I can create floating shapes of wool without wall anchor points, just like the ruled graphite lines in the Collage Paintings.

In considering how I can defy gravity with the brushstrokes themselves, I have cut around a brushstroke from the plastic sheeting, creating something similar to a paint skin.  It’s not very structurally rigid, which makes for a floppy brushstroke, but there still may be something to suspending it with fish line, as seen below.  Structurally sound brushstroke anyone?