Reading a Paint Surface week 5: Additions and Reverse Gear

 Final week of 'Reading a Paint Surface' at City  Lit   was about  thinking and working strategically - looking at areas  in our  paintings  where there was a deficiency; referring again to our source material  and working out the evolution of how to get there, laying something down speculatively then  working up the layers with thicker paint ( or using the 'reverse gear ' and wiping it off).Also to vary the marks and textures across the surface through  changes to velocity, thickness of paint, layers of colour.  We  started with peer feedback  of our work -  1 person thinking the areas  to keep and those to change the complete opposite of my own opinions, someone else being rather more on my wavelength. Both valuable as it makes you articulate  why you like a particular part .

 ' Green Libra' needed the  most work  doing to it , I'd scribbled over some photos  while on the train, deciding it needed  most on upper right : a bigger overlap of shapes ; more definition of the  lines particularly the negative shapes.  The tutors suggestion was to use a palette knife with orange to bring definition to that area

  I did that  and added some dark areas  and white  with the palette knife ( it certainly made it 'pop'!) However it was too heavy handed , time to apply that 'reverse gear' and remove the paint - much better.

 The final version works when desaturated too which is a relief !

Meanwhile ' Red Libra' was almost there just needed something to knock back the areas which weren't of interest ( top and right) which distracted from the main parts. This is where working on 2 painting at once came in, using ideas from one painting in the other . In this case I borrowed the green underpainting colour and applied a glaze over these areas including some nice drippy bits ( see picture at top for detail)

My 2 paintings side by side -  by no means finished  but I had an absolute ball  working on them, Although I've enjoyed the drawing and print courses, colour and paint was always my first love.
I'm now looking at painting courses for the Autumn term