I generally spend weeks, sometimes months completing a painting, but these works on paper were all completed quickly, some in an hour, all in less than five,...and all centered on maintaining a fresh vision, mixing directly on the paper, and finding large patterns and shapes with speed.
I use acrylic paint.
On a difficult day, they can appear unwieldy, stiff, and uncompromising; traits I'm not interested in. Because they dry fast, blending isn't acrylics' most natural trait, needing be coaxed. Yet these paints have excellent collaging properties, and transport easily. They are also generous, fast drying, clean, and saturated.
I wanted to accentuate acrylic properties I both admire and find disadvantageous, simultaneously. This meant working more rapidly so the paint would hold some sense of butteriness before its speed of drying could overtake and prohibit all blending.
I like modeling space and blending is part of that, but over blending is a killer to both surface and space, so my mantra for these hours was: work fast, choose with care, apply with greater confidence, find the essential contrast, and keep the stroke visible to the extent space allows.
Admittedly, that means some of these little works are more satisfying than others, some are simply exercises in making myself stop when I could have easily kept going, correcting, altering spaces, and re-visiting.
On another day I will want to modify, to stretch, to participate for longer.
I will want subtlety and longevity, and to be blissfully patient, thoughtful, internal...
But for today, there is satisfaction in choosing to be bold if only for an hour.
The goal was met. State things economically and with the immediacy of a first, excited 'hey look at that, I'd like to see that in paint...now'
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