The challenging process of actually cranking up the creative motor and finally, brushing the color onto the paper, sometimes last a long time. Yesterday I used almost an entire day before choosing and mixing the oil paint; taking down the 55" x 55" piece of paper from the wall to work on it; measuring and taping the paper before plunging ahead. It is so easy to procrastinate and find other things to do instead of trying to pull ideas from my mind and transferring them to a surface.
For day 2 of making this painting, I adhered blue tape along a measured section of the top and bottom of the paper in order to help me keep one segment of the paper absolutely white. I then mixed ultramarine and indigo Windsor Newton oil paint in a jar along with some Windsor Newton Liquin. Normally I squeeze out the paint onto a palette, but this time I had a large amount of surface to cover with exactly the same color. This was the first time I have done this--and think I was inspired by deKooning who used to mix his paints to a certain consistency in jars. I am sure there are many other artists who employ the same technique--and it sure beats remixing paint on a palette.
After about an hour I finished the dark top and bottom sections of the painting.
Here are the results of that process.
You can still see the pieces of blue tape on this picture.
I am planning to put my interpretation of icebergs in the white section. Stay tuned!
